Every year since 1994, the Whitley Fund for Nature, a UK-based charity, has been presenting the Whitley Award — popularly called the Green Oscars — to individuals in recognition of “their achievements in nature conservation.”
This year, the award recipients include six conservationists chosen from a pool of over 166 applicants from all over the world. Each of these conservationists have spent years trying to devise innovative ways of protecting species at risk of extinction and securing critical habitats.
Awards ceremony was held at the Royal Geographic Society in London, each of the six winners received £35,000 ($46,000) in project funding to help scale up their work.
Zafer Kizilkaya, a 2013 Whitley Award winner from Turkey, received this year’s Whitley Gold Award for his conservation project “Guardians of the sea: securing and expanding marine reserves along the Turkish coastline”.
The Whitley Gold Award is given to an “exceptional Whitley Award alumnus for outstanding contribution”. The Gold Award includes £50,000 ($65,000) in project funding, donated by the Friends and Scottish Friends of the Whitley Fund for Nature.
2017 Whitley Award Winners List
Purnima Barman – India
Purnima Barman of NGO Aaranyak based in Assam, India, has launched a one-woman campaign to protect the Greater Adjutant stork (Leptoptilos dubius) — a giant bird that feeds on carrion, is frequently spotted on garbage dumps in Assam, and is often considered “ugly”. She works with local communities in Assam to inject a sense of pride and “ownership” in the once-common, but now endangered storks.
Sanjay Gubbi – India
Sanjay Gubbi, a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation in India, has helped expand the protected area network in Karnataka, India, a state that is home to the highest number of Royal Bengal Tigers in India. He has also worked with the Forest Department to reduce habitat fragmentation and increase connectivity between forests, and has helped institute social security and welfare measures for forest watchers and guards.
Alexander Blanco – Venezuela
Blanco is a wildlife scientist and veterinarian who has been working to protect one of the world’s largest and fiercest eagles — the Harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) — in Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela since 1996. Harpy eagle were once widespread, but are now declining, primarily due to habitat loss from logging, agriculture and livestock grazing.
Indira Lacerna-Widmann – Philippines
Indira Lacerna-Widmann, the Chief Operating Officer of the Katala Foundation, a Philippines-based organisation, works to protect the Critically Endangered Philippine cockatoo (Cacatua haematuropygia). The bird nests within the grounds of Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Puerto Princesa City, and Lacerna-Widmann has successfully implemented the Philippine Cockatoo Conservation Programme (PCCP) that involves educating and training prisoners to act as wildlife wardens for the birds.
Ian Little – South Africa
Ian Little of the Endangered Wildlife Trust works with farmers and tribal leaders in South Africa to protect grasslands, one of the most threatened habitats in the country. He has been involved in introducing simple changes in management practices, such as altering burning and livestock grazing regimes to decrease pressure on grasslands.
Ximena Velez-Liendo – Bolivia
Ximena Velez-Liendo, a Chester Zoo Conservation Fellow and Research Associate of WildCRU, works to help Bolivia’s communities co-exist with the Andean or Spectacles bear (Tremarctos ornatus), the only bear native to South America. Velez-Liendo’s project is introducing interventions to reduce conflict, developing alternate livelihoods to local communities, and monitoring the Andean bear populations in the region.