Wangari Maathai - Wangari Maathai Award

Wangari Maathai Award

In 2012, the Collaborative Partnership on ForestsCPF, an international consortium of 14 organizations, secretariats and institutions working on international forest issues, launched the inaugural Wangari Maathai Award to honour and commemorate an extraordinary woman who championed forest issues around the world. The USD20,000 award is given in recognition of outstanding contributions made by an individual to preserve, restore and sustainably manage forests and to communicate the key role forests play in rural livelihoods and the environment across generations.

The 2012 inaugural winner of the Award was Narayan Kaji Shrestha. Dr Shrestha is recognized as one of main architects of the community forestry movement in Nepal, which he has spent three decades promoting and which has contributed significantly to restoring forest resources in the country. He guided early attempts to create a more participatory approach to community decision-making, reaching out to women and low-caste villagers and initiating the country’s first user-managed community forestry group. In addition to influencing legislation, Dr Shrestha provided leadership to the national organization that later became the Federation of Community Forestry Users in Nepal and continues to be a guide and mentor to many practitioners and leaders involved in participatory resource management.

The jury also awarded Kurshida Begum of Bangladesh an Honourable Mention prize for her work helping women in her village form a community patrol group alongside forest department guards to protect the forests and biodiversity of the Tenkaf Wildlife Sanctuary from illegal logging and poaching. Her work has helped women gain an effective voice in their community, provided them with a steady source of income and has helped her communicate the importance of forest and natural resource issues to visitors to the sanctuary.