Minister Sonia Guajajara receives UN's greatest environmental award

This Tuesday, December 10, when the world celebrates International Human Rights Day, Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, received the 2024 Champions of the Earth Award, the greatest honor granted by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

The award has been part of the United Nations Environment Program agenda since  2005, recognizing individuals and organizations for actions with a transformative power over the environment. The 2024 edition paid tribute to professionals and corporations focused on providing innovative and sustainable solutions to restore the Earth, increasing resilience to drought, and combating desertification.

“I am very happy and honored to receive the Champions of the Earth Award, the UN's greatest environmental honor, on this International Human Rights Day. This recognition further strengthens my responsibility and commitment to keep defending our planet's biodiversity and raising people's awareness about the urgency to protect it,” said Sonia Guajajara.

CHALLENGES — Besides celebrating the award, the minister highlighted today's environmental, climate, social, political, and ethical challenges. "These challenges result from the predatory exploration of nature, unequal power relations in society, differences in access to rights and political participation, income concentration, and inequality. The risks and losses from these crises will be felt by all of us, though they will disproportionately affect certain social groups,” she observed, underscoring the importance of valuing the Indigenous culture of caring for the earth.

“Society can greatly learn from the Indigenous good living [buen vivir]. Our ways of life are based on respect for Mother Earth and all the beings that share this time and space with us,  on the prevalence of collective interests over individual interests, on caregiving and experiencing life as a community,” pointed out Sonia Guajajara.

UNEP — UNEP defines the award winners based on a list of nominations received from around the world, based on criteria such as the impact of nominees’ activities, innovation, and the power of their story. “Valuing the struggle and the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous peoples is essential to allow us to change this scenario.

In this sense, recognitions that value and disseminate our knowledge are extremely important, as is the case of the Champions of the Earth Award. I thank the United Nations Environment Program for the award and for their partnership throughout this trajectory for the preservation of biodiversity,” concluded the Minister of Indigenous Peoples.