The Earthna Centre for a Sustainable Future unveiled a one-of-its-kind initiative yesterday (April 22) at Education City aimed at recognising and promoting the vital role of ancestral wisdom in addressing contemporary environmental challenges.
Dubbed as “Earthna Prize”, the project was launched to mark International Earth Day in Qatar, highlighting the importance of traditional knowledge in shaping effective sustainability strategies.
In a press statement, Qatar Foundation vice chairperson and CEO, HE Sheikha Hind bint Hamad al-Thani, said: “The Earthna Prize is a call to honour and learn from the deep ecological wisdom of Indigenous peoples. These invaluable traditions provide us with time-tested institutions and precepts that truly work.”
The Earthna Prize seeks to support projects and organisations dedicated to preserving, integrating, and applying traditional knowledge and cultural heritage to tackle pressing sustainability issues.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a press conference during the launch, Earthna executive director Dr Gonzalo Castro de la Mata underlined the unique focus of the Prize on traditional wisdom, noting that it aims to acknowledge and study the relevance of community practices accumulated over generations.
“Usually ‘environmental prizes’ try to recognise initiatives to solve environmental problems of today. But here, we’re really looking at the knowledge that has been accumulated in communities around the world and the relevance of that knowledge to solutions to today’s problems.
“So for example, there are many community practices for good water management that these communities are still practicing around the world, and this has been going on for hundreds of years, many generations, and we don't want that knowledge to be lost. On the contrary, we want to recognise it and we want to study the extent to which these solutions are still relevant today”.
De la Mata, joined by Earthna Content Development Lead Dr Mona Matar al-Kuwari, said the Prize will be awarded every two years across four categories, with a total prize pool of $1mn. Each category will receive $250,000, empowering winners to further develop and scale their initiatives.
The Earthna Prize will award outstanding contributions in water resource management, food security, sustainable urbanism, and land stewardship. Winners will be selected based on their alignment with these themes and their innovation, effectiveness, and scalability.
To ensure the long-term impact of winning projects, Dela Mata said Earthna plans to monitor and evaluate their progress, adding that recipients must demonstrate how they will utilise the prize money to sustain and expand their efforts.
He said Earthna anticipates a substantial response to the Prize, reflecting the widespread interest in traditional knowledge and community-led initiatives.
“There are hundreds of researchers and institutions around the world that are working on traditional knowledge and communities... that unfortunately usually their work is not recognised so I expect that we’re gonna have hundreds of applicants,” De la Mata added.
Application for the Earthna Prize is open until June 30, welcoming submissions from non-governmental organisations, community groups, and businesses worldwide. A diverse panel of experts in sustainability, traditional knowledge, and cultural heritage will rigorously evaluate the applications, with winners set to be announced at the Earthna Summit in 2025.
