Restor and G20 Global Land Initiative Announce the RestorLife Awards to Celebrate Restoration Champions

Riyadh, KSA - December 11, 2024 —  Restor and the G20 Global Land Initiative Coordination Office of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) launch the prestigious RestorLife Awards at the UNCCD COP16. These awards honor and recognize organizations and businesses that demonstrate exceptional dedication to environmental restoration and safeguarding livelihoods and ecosystems.

The RestorLife Awards feature two categories: the NGO Award, which recognizes organizations that lead impactful conservation and restoration efforts, with a prize of USD 25,000, and the Responsible Business Leadership Award, honoring businesses committed to exceptional corporate responsibility and positive environmental action. Nominees are carefully selected by a panel, experts in ecology, community development, and sustainability, ensuring a thorough evaluation process.

Restor, home to the largest community of land stewards working to protect and restore nature, is a key partner in the G20 Global Land Initiative's goal to restore 50 percent of degraded land worldwide by 2040. These awards celebrate and accelerate the work of projects directly contributing to the G20’s land restoration targets. 

Dr. Muralee Thummarukudy, Director of the Global Land Initiative Coordination Office, emphasized the importance of these awards, stating: "If we need to scale restoration, we need to promote restoration efforts both in the community and private sector. We are delighted to work with Restor to recognize champions of land restoration and inspire more individual and collective action. Restoring degraded land will help nature to protect us and save our biodiversity from the coming powerful and negative impacts of climate change."

“The local stewards of nature are the people at the forefront of the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. We need to celebrate and enable the work being done by these local heroes and learn from their successes so that we can build a better world” shared Thomas Crowther, Founder of Restor, and Co-chair of the Advisory Board for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. 

Applications for the RestorLife Awards close on February 28, 2025. Organizations and businesses from around the world are welcome to apply through the Restor platform. The winner of the NGO Award will receive a USD 25,000 grant in recognition of their achievements. The awards ceremony will take place at Ramsar COP15 in Zimbabwe, where awardees from both categories will be flown in to present their work, network, and receive their award.

Apply now!

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About Restor:

Creating a world where every action positively impacts nature. Restor is an open-data, geospatial platform that offers nature stewards access to the latest ecological science for impact storytelling. With over 200,000+ sites, Restor is the largest network of community-led restoration and conservation efforts across the globe. Through Restor, governments, companies, impact funders, and financial institutions can connect and contribute to the regenerative use of the land we all depend on. Find out more here: www.restor.eco 

Visit Restor and sign up today, and view our trailer.

Contact Details
Restor
media@restor.eco

About G20 Global Land Initiative:

The ambition of the G20 Global Initiative on Reducing Land Degradation and Enhancing Conservation of Terrestrial Habitats (G20 Global Land Initiative) is to scale land restoration in all terrestrial ecosystems to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in degraded land by 2040. The Initiative, which was launched in 2020, under the G20’s Saudi Arabia Presidency, is hosted by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification based in Bonn, Germany.

Contact Details
Communications Coordinator
UNCCD G20 GLI
wwischnewski@unccd.int

Visit g20land.org and sign up today, and follow us on @g20landinitiative.