If you're restoring land, oceans, or forests, you are already a winner.
Not because you have all the answers, or endless resources, or instant success. But because you chose to care. And to act.
This was the very thought that brought us and the Global Land Initiative together in COP16 to launch the RestorLife Awards.
In a world facing ecological crisis, headlines filled with loss and consequences, we choose to focus on enabling people. People who are on the ground, deeply connected to their land, and restoring it alongside protecting livelihoods, cultures and futures.
And yet, time and again, we’ve noticing something remarkable.
What if the most powerful solutions to our planet’s crisis aren’t coming from the top, but from the ground up?
We’re finding the answer not in institutions or declarations, but in communities. In individuals, quietly repairing what’s been lost, regenerating life acre by acre. We believe they are the ones who must be celebrated and supported in every way possible because if we want a planet where nature and humanity can thrive together, it begins with them.
This is what we call the bottom-up movement. It is alive in the work of 1,127 applicants who are doing the work quietly, persistently and often against all odds.
Today, we are proud to announce the winners of the RestorLife Awards 2025
Ecoporé | Winner of NGO Award
Ecoporé is a nonprofit organization based in Rondônia, Brazil, working at the heart of the Amazon since 1988. Through agroforestry and sustainable land management, they have restored over 2,500 hectares of degraded land, strengthened watershed protection, and supported local farmers with practical, regenerative solutions. Their community-led approach builds long-term, sustainable livelihoods for the people of the Amazon.
How they plan to use the Award funding:
1. Train field teams:
Provide specialized technical training in restoration, agroforestry, biodiversity monitoring, and land management to strengthen local capacity and ensure long-term impact.
2. Improve monitoring:
Adopt digital tools for data collection, remote sensing, impact reporting, and geospatial analysis to transparently track ecological recovery and guide decision-making.
3. Expand communications:
Produce case studies, reports, and multimedia content to increase visibility, share restoration results, engage stakeholders, and attract new funding opportunities.
4. Upgrade evaluation systems:
Refine project indicators and standardize data collection to measure impact more accurately across all restoration sites.
Terraformation | Winner of the Responsible Business Leadership Award
Terraformation is restoring the world's native forests to address climate change, renew biodiverse ecosystems, and support thriving communities. Headquartered in Hawaii, USA, Terraformation scales natural carbon capture by solving the biggest bottlenecks to forest restoration, accelerating global progress toward this climate solution.
Through its community-driven model, Terraformation supports local teams in reversing land degradation with biodiverse reforestation. This approach fills a critical funding gap: 95% of qualified foresters in tropical regions lack the resources to scale, while much existing climate finance still prioritizes monocultures or protection-only efforts.
Their Seed to Carbon Forest Accelerator offers a practical solution: it equips cohorts of forest teams with technical training and funding through a peer-reviewed Forestry-backed Asset Design model that improves project outcomes and lowers investor risk.
Each cohort of six teams generates:
300–500 new jobs
1.5+ million metric tons of carbon sequestration
3+ million trees planted
$37 million in benefits for local communities over 40 years
Since 2023, over 30 projects across Latin America, Africa, and Asia have joined the Accelerator—including Ramsar sites and Key Biodiversity Areas like Ghana’s Keta Lagoon Complex.
Terraformation’s work has earned global recognition: it was named a WEF UpLink Top Innovator for advancing the Trillion Trees goal and received the G20 International Finance Forum Innovation Award for mobilizing green finance at scale.
Want to meet RestorLife finalists of 2025? Read here.
More information about the RestorLife Awards Click here.
Written by Restor.eco
Published in
Community stories
on
22 de abril de 2025
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