Indigenous peoples, refugee groups and small-scale farmers from across the globe have been awarded a share of £236,000 prize money on this yr’s awards by campaigning cosmetics brand Lush.
Greater than £200,000 has been awarded to 17 projects demonstrating responses to the climate emergency, the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of the Ukraine war in the worldwide south.
The prize, which has been awarded every two years since its launch in 2017, seeks to rejoice and reward projects that address challenges holistically and regeneratively.
Poverty
At the very least 14 different countries and five continents are represented among the many prize-winners. This includes three countries represented amongst Spring Prize recipients for the primary time – Colombia, Nepal and Madagascar.
Judges are drawn from a various range of movements that represent regenerative design, permaculture design, food sovereignty, transition towns, biomimicry, eco-village networks and various social justice movements. Lush also appoints a judge from its staff and customer base for every prize cycle.
They awarded prizes across six categories: intentional; young; established and influence awards, the Permaculture Magazine Award; and the traditional and indigenous wisdom award run in partnership with Be The Earth Foundation. The prize fund of £236,000 was shared between winners.
One in all the winners under the award for established projects was the Himalayan Permaculture Centre in Nepal.
The grassroots NGO is run by farmers and operates in distant and poor farming communities in Western Nepal. Its projects are regenerative and integrate food security, health, education, livelihoods and training so that folks are usually not forced to depart villages because of poverty.
Knowledge
The Taniala Regenerative Camp in Madagascar was a winner within the intentional category. It goals to support forest regeneration by promoting sustainable agriculture techniques.
In 2022, it arrange its first regenerative camps in Lambokely, a village where migrants live after fleeing famine and drought, and where slash-and-burn cultivation is common and because of this, resulting in deforestation.
The Instituto Janeraka in Brazil won the traditional and indigenous wisdom award for its work with the Awaete people, whose population had been in touch with the worldwide society for lower than 50 years.
Consequently, they faced quite a few psychological and ecological challenges, which have worsened with the development of hydroelectric power plants and mining activities.
The institute has launched several projects, resembling a knowledge exchange program between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, and art and media projects.
This Creator
Catherine Early is a contract environmental journalist and chief reporter for The Ecologist. She tweets at @Cat_Early76. For the total list of winners, and more details about projects, see here.
