DDS and Urok Community Marine Protected Area win 2019 Equator Prize

Inter Pares is thrilled to congratulate two champions of biodiversity: the Deccan Development Society (DDS) and Urok Community Marine Protected Area, on receiving the prestigious Equator Prize! This prize is a recognition of their outstanding work to create and implement local, nature-based solutions to climate change and sustainable development.

For two decades, Inter Pares has worked with DDS, an association of 5,000 mostly Dalit women from Telangana state, India, who practise biodiversity-based and climate resilient agriculture. They have turned a region of hunger into one of bounty, relying on local knowledge and seed diversity, and serve as a model of healthy and sustainable food systems globally.

Since 1991, Inter Pares has supported the work of Tiniguena in Guinea-Bissau. This national organization helped create the first ever marine protected area in Guinea-Bissau managed in partnership with local Indigenous Bijagos communities. This bottom-up approach to biodiversity conservation has proven to be an effective way to protect the island’s fragile biodiversity while ensuring the Bijagos are in the drivers’ seat.  

For two decades, Inter Pares has worked with these two groups who show us every day what it means to work collectively to care for our planet, enacting local, and culturally rooted solutions to protect biodiversity. Congratulations!

The Equator Initiative is a United Nations-led partnership that brings together governments, civil society, grassroots organizations, and businesses to foster resilient communities by recognizing and advancing local nature-based solutions for sustainable development. The Equator Initiative creates opportunities and platforms to share knowledge and good practices, develops capacities of local communities and indigenous peoples, informs policy through convening multi-stakeholder dialogues, and fosters enabling environments to replicate and scale up community action