This year’s Irene Dankelman Young Ecofeminist Awards were announced today in Yerevan, Armenia, as a part of Biodiversity COP17.
Taking its name from the late Irene Dankelman, a Dutch activist who campaigned tirelessly on feminist and environmental issues, the award recognises the work of young leaders on the frontlines of climate activism who have a demonstrated commitment to gender equality and environmental sustainability in their work.
The winners hailed from across the globe, with activism backgrounds supporting victims of gender-based violence, LGBTQ+ activism, and Indigenous rights. Each recipient was invited to make an individual speech, followed by a panel discussion.
The first recipient was Sarah Adongo, a Ugandan lawyer and legal officer who works for Witness Radio in a team of human rights defenders, journalists, and lawyers monitoring land evictions across the country. Adongo’s work focuses on issues of sexual and gender-based violence, which intersects with her work supporting rural communities facing land dispossession.
She has also contributed to national policy issues, in particular the revising of the Ugandan National Land Policy.
“[Environmental] work does not begin at international conferences,” she said in her acceptance speech. “It begins in our local communities.”
Adongo also emphasised the need for national and international policymakers to ensure women are included in decision making spaces, especially when the outcomes will impact them.
The second award winner was Yemi Knight, the Barbadian founder and executive director of AnchorBridge Environmental. Knight founded the organisation at 22 years old, and their advocacy and policy work has taken them across the Caribbean.
Within their list of achievements, Knight has secured reform of the Barbados Water Authority’s Standards of Service to provide better water to rural areas, and advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusion in natural disaster planning.
Intersectionality across race, gender, class, and the environment is at the heart of Knight’s work, as, in their own words, “discrimination does not happen in isolation.”
It was the tireless campaigning on environmental restoration and protection of her community’s ancestral land which won Monitte Lantas the final award. A Tagbanwa Indigenous leader from Narra, in the Philippines’ western Palawan archipelago, Lantas works on restoration and biodiversity protection.
As the president of Nagkakaisang Kabataang Katutubo ng Narra, or NKKN, a local Indigenous youth organisation, she has been a part of the successful planting of more than 2,000 saplings since its inception in 2021.
Lantas is also a fierce advocate for women and young people, both within her community and beyond.
In her acceptance speech, Lantas highlighted that “environmental issues are deeply connected to social justice, gender equality, and the rights of indigenous peoples.”
“We cannot fully protect our environment without defending the people who protect it,” she said.
During the panel discussion, award recipients were asked what they want international decision makers to know about their work and communities, and how they can receive more effective support.
Although she acknowledged this would require a mindset change for many policymakers, Adongo emphasised the necessity of women to be included in the spaces where decisions which impact them are made. She also wanted more knowledge sharing between local communities, who work on the ground and understand the environment around them, and national bodies working legislating nature preservation.
Lantas concurred with Adongo on the importance of local involvement in protecting national biodiversity. She added that this should also come with economic empowerment for these communities.
Knight spoke of their struggle working on environmental and disaster relief legislation as an open LGBTQ+ advocate and public stance as an openly queer Caribbean advocate.
“As soon as I mention LGBTQ issues, all of my credentials leave [the decision-making space],” they said. Knight stressed that anti-LGBTQ sentiment can frequently hinder efforts to achieve truly equal eco-legislation, and that more should be done to acknowledge the intersectionality of these issues.
The UN’s Biodiversity COP is a biannual event for signatories to the UN Convention on biological diversity. Alongside the “Blue Zone” at the COP17, where officials from around the world are expected to meet, the “Green Zone” aims to bring together Indigenous leaders, civil society organisations, businesses, and youth movements for a series of panel discussions, talks, and workshops on biodiversity.
The conference will run until October 30. Livestreams of main events can be accessed on the COP17 webpage, and on YouTube.
Featured image: via Women Engage for a Common Future
