Great Barrier Reef Female Indigenous Rangers secure prestigious Earthshot Prize

The annual Earthshot Prize, an independent charity founded by HRH Prince William and the Royal Foundation in 2020, awards $1.8 million each to winners in five categories with a women-led Indigenous rangers program that protects and restores the Great Barrier Reef being announced as the winner of the ‘Revive our oceans’ category.

The Earthshot Prize initiative aims to bring the same level of urgency and ambition to today’s environmental challenges as John F. Kennedy’s “moonshot” space-race challenge.

The winners were announced at a ceremony at the MGM Music Hall in the US city of Boston on Friday night, local time — which was early on Saturday morning here in Australia.

The winning program from the Queensland Indigenous Womens Ranger Network combines 65,000 years of Indigenous knowledge with digital technologies such as drones to monitor coral changes and bushfires to protect precious land and sea country.

QIWRN is delivered by Yuku Baja Muliku Landowner and Reserves, a Cooktown-based Traditional Owner group who were the successful recipients of a joint Queensland Government and WWF Australia grant to establish a state-wide women’s land and sea ranger network. QIWRN has been co-designed by Indigenous women, government and non-government agencies, land councils and other stakeholders as a highly collaborative program that delivers lasting support, opportunities and security for Indigenous women rangers across Queensland.

Established in 2018, the network was designed to provide a forum for female rangers to share their experiences, ideas and information and has since trained more than 60 women.

Proud Yuku Baja Muliku woman and the first female Indigenous ranger coordinator in Queensland, Larissa Hale accepted the prestigious prize on behalf of the Indigenous women who are protecting and restoring the Great Barrier Reef.

Hale said the network came together because there weren't enough Indigenous women in land and sea management and enthused “I am thrilled and honoured to see the Queensland Indigenous Women’s Ranger Network recognised on the global platform provided by the Earthshot Prize.

“Winning one of the five 2022 Earthshot Prizes is a gamechanger for our women’s ranger network that exists to protect the Great Barrier Reef and all our vital land and sea country – our home.

“The Queensland Women’s Indigenous Ranger Program is the only First Nations women’s program linking technological solutions and start-up opportunities to environmental outcomes ‘on country’ in Australia.

“Winning this prize means we can grow the number of Indigenous women rangers, plus have 200 girls in an education program, inspiring the next generation of Indigenous rangers.

“Beyond that, our ambition is to reach out to a network of countries around the world to build a global collective helping to repair the planet.

“This would create a global groundswell of First Nations female led conservation programs.

“Many people are worried about climate change and the destruction of nature. This place has always been our home, but today we risk losing it and the unique culture that has existed here for millennia.

“But I believe it isn’t too late to act. We have the power to shift this if we stand up now, work together and take action.

“I’m grateful to the Earthshot Prize for supporting our vision to achieve this.”

Among the panel of judges selecting this year’s high-profile awards are naturalist Sir David Attenborough, actress Cate Blanchett, musician Shakira, and Christiana Figueres, former head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The winners were selected from a group of 15 finalists from 10 different countries.

Australian Minister for Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek enthused “I am absolutely thrilled for Larissa and her team.

“Currently only 20% of Indigenous rangers in Queensland are women, my hope is this Prize will help raise awareness of this vital work to grow the number of women rangers on the Reef and beyond.

“We know the Great Barrier Reef is under threat from the impacts of climate change, poor water quality, plastic pollution, crown-of-thorns starfish and unsustainable fishing practices.

“The Reef’s Indigenous rangers are vital to its defence.

“Indigenous Rangers play a vital role in the restoration and preservation of land and water including the Reef by helping to protect both biodiversity and cultural values. The programs also provide jobs in regional and remote communities, maintain connection to country and grows local economies.”

The Earthshot Prize is centred around five ‘Earthshots’ – simple, ambitious, and aspirational goals defining the world we wish to build for future generations. Each Earthshot is underpinned by scientifically agreed goals and targets, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals and other internationally recognised measures to help repair our planet.

The five Earthshots are:

•    Protect and restore nature

•    Clean our air

•    Revive our oceans

•    Build a waste-free world

•    Fix our climate

The other 2022 Earthshot Prize winners were:

Protect and Restore Nature category: Kheyti — a "greenhouse-in-a-box" concept created to increase yields on small farms in India

Start-up Kheyti has developed a “greenhouse-in-a-box” to help the world’s approximately 570 million smallholder farmers protect their crops from unpredictable, harsh weather, and pests—two challenges made worse due to climate change. According to the company, its modular greenhouses are 90% cheaper than standard greenhouses, employ drip irrigation to help use 98% less water than growing crops outdoors, and can boost yields seven-fold compared to typical agricultural methods. Together with training provided by Kheyti, farmers are able to double their incomes, according to the company. So far, some 1,000 farms are using the greenhouses; by 2027 the company hopes to reach 50,000 farmers.

Clean Our Air category: Mukuru Clean Stoves — a female-founded startup that's providing cleaner-burning biomass stoves in Africa

Mukuru Clean Stoves is a female-founded business, staffed mostly with women, which aims to bring cleaner-burning stoves to women in Kenya. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, more than 950 million people rely on heavily polluting wood and charcoal for cooking, a number estimated to grow to 1.67 billion by 2050. The startup was founded in 2017 by Charlot Magayi, who used to sell charcoal for fuel in Mukuru, one of Nairobi’s largest slums, and whose daughter was severely burnt by a charcoal stove, prompting a search for a better solution. According to the company, Mukuru’s stove emits 90% less pollution than cooking over an open fire, and 70% less pollution than using a traditional cookstove. Costing just $10, the stove is fueled by biomass created from charcoal, wood, and sugarcane; fuel expenses are also half that of traditional sources.

Build a Waste-Free World category: Notpla — A UK company making biodegradable packaging from seaweed

Looking for an alternative to fossil-fuel-based plastics? London-based start-up Notpla (short for “not plastic”) was launched in 2019 by Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Carcia Gonzalez, who both studied in a Innovation Design Engineering program run jointly by the Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art. Together, they created a biodegradable seaweed-based packaging for everything from liquids and food. Notpla tackles environmental issues on two fronts: first, its environmentally friendly alternative to plastic can help make a dent in the some 6.3 metric tons of plastic waste currently clogging the world’s streets and sea, and second, the seaweed the product is based on can capture carbon 20 times faster than trees. So far, Notpla has provided more than 1 million take-out containers to JustEatTakeaway.com, a global online food-delivery marketplace

Fix our Climate category: 44.01 — a technique for transforming atmospheric carbon into rock in Oman in the Middle East

This Oman-based start-up takes its name from the molecular weight of carbon dioxide: 44.01 grams per mole. In an effort to reduce the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, 44.01 sucks CO2 from the atmosphere using direct-air-capture technology, dissolves it into water, and then pumps the resulting carbonated water into underground seams of peridotite—an igneous rock formed from Earth’s mantle—where it’s stored in a process known as mineralisation. Their system is powered by energy derived from heat, solar, and biofuels. Founded by Talal Hasan, 44.01’s first project in Oman—home to the world’s largest concentration of peridotite—will mineralize 1,000 metric tons of CO2 each year until 2024, emissions equal to driving 215 gas-powered cars for a year. It also hopes to expand internationally, and store 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2040.