UNEP names 2024 Champions of the Earth for ecosystem restoration

The United Nations Environment Programme announced its 2024 Champions of the Earth, recognising government and organisational projects driving large-scale ecosystem restoration. The winners offer Indian policymakers and businesses replicable models linking nature-positive investment to operational risk reduction and regulatory readiness.

The United Nations Environment Programme announced the 2024 Champions of the Earth winners, recognising transformative restoration projects worldwide. Ethiopia's Green Legacy project, launched in 2019 to plant 20 billion trees over five years, surpassed expectations by planting more than 40 billion seedlings by 2024 while strengthening food security. Indonesia's Sungai Watch, founded in 2020, removed over two million kilograms of plastic from inland waterways using affordable trash barriers across Bali and Java. Other winners worked on mangroves, seagrass and protected-area management.

The award recognises governments and organisations across diverse landscapes. The Environment Agency Abu Dhabi led mangrove and seagrass restoration in arid coastal regions for blue-carbon sequestration. Mexico's National Commission for Protected Natural Areas (CONANP) manages 225 federal protected areas spanning over 95 million hectares of land and sea, protecting endangered species and ecological corridors. For global businesses and policymakers, these models highlight financial and social stability gained through nature-positive investments that reduce long-term operational risks and foster community resilience against climate volatility.

Organisations should treat biodiversity conservation as a prerequisite for sustainable market growth and upcoming regulatory compliance, per the source. The winning projects demonstrate that community-led and government-supported initiatives, each relying on clear timelines and specific implementing bodies, can reverse environmental degradation with measurable results. Entities should study these blueprints for integrating ecosystem restoration into economic and social agendas, and monitor how scalable, measurable nature-positive action increasingly intersects with disclosure expectations and natural-capital risk management in their own operations.

Key figure — Trees planted: over 40 billion seedlings under Ethiopia's Green Legacy by 2024