Equator Prize

The United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) invites nominees for the Equator Prize. The Equator Prize is awarded biennially by the UNDP Equator Initiative for outstanding local, indigenous, and community efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Now in its fifth award cycle, the Equator Prize recognises its special significance during the International Year of Biodiversity, 2010.

The Equator Prize 2010 will be awarded to twenty-five local and indigenous communities from across the tropics; twenty will receive US$5,000 and a further five will be selected as "special recognition" winners and receive a total of US$20,000. "Special recognition" will be awarded in each region of prize eligibility (Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean), one for indigenous peoples and applied traditional knowledge, and one for ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change. Equator Prize winners receive international recognition for their work and an opportunity to shape international policy and practice in the field.

Equator Prize winners are selected on the principal criteria of impact, partnerships, sustainability, innovation and transferability, leadership, and community empowerment, as well as gender equality and social inclusion. Past Equator Prize winners have spanned fields of work ranging from agro-forestry to seed banks, agriculture to enterprise, indigenous and community-conserved areas to locally-managed marine areas, adaptation to climate change to organic farming, and more. Equator Prize winners share the common feature of reconciling viable livelihoods with the maintenance of biological diversity and ecological balance.

Nominations of qualified community initiatives that are active in environmental conservation and sustainable livelihoods within the equatorial region, including self-nominations, are welcome.