As natural systems endure extraordinary strain, acknowledging the people who champion significant progress has become vital to preserving life across the planet.The MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity showcases these contributions and broadens their influence around the globe.
The global community continues striving to stop and reverse biodiversity loss while simultaneously confronting interconnected challenges, including climate change, food security, and human well-being. In this landscape, international recognition initiatives play an essential part in highlighting effective strategies, circulating knowledge, and motivating action across sectors and borders. One notable example is the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity, an international award devoted to acknowledging individuals whose efforts have produced a tangible impact on conserving and sustainably managing the planet’s biological diversity.
The nomination phase for the 2026 edition of the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity is currently in progress, encouraging the public to put forward individuals whose work demonstrates exceptional leadership, innovative methods, and enduring impact. Entries may be submitted from 2 February to 31 March 2026 through the official platform of the AEON Environmental Foundation. By allowing open participation, the Prize reinforces its commitment to transparency and inclusion, ensuring that valuable contributions from diverse regions and disciplines receive recognition on a global scale.
A distinction crafted to bring biodiversity to the forefront of the global agenda
The MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity was established to highlight how essential biodiversity is for maintaining resilient ecosystems and supporting human life. Robust biodiversity sustains food production, helps regulate the climate, safeguards water supplies, and bolsters economic well-being and cultural heritage. Yet biodiversity loss has intensified in recent years, propelled by habitat degradation, pollution, unsustainable resource use, and the impacts of climate change.
Against this backdrop, the Prize serves not only as an award but also as a platform for awareness. By highlighting individual achievements, it draws public attention to practical solutions and reinforces the message that committed leadership can generate tangible environmental outcomes. The recognition offered by the Prize helps bridge the gap between scientific knowledge, policy development, and on-the-ground implementation, encouraging collaboration across disciplines and sectors.
Since its inception, the Prize has honored individuals whose work spans a wide range of fields, from scientific research and community-based conservation to policy advocacy and environmental education. This diversity reflects an understanding that biodiversity conservation cannot be achieved through isolated efforts, but requires coordinated action that integrates science, governance, and societal engagement.
Global cooperation stands at the core of the initiative
The MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity is co-organized by the AEON Environmental Foundation and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This partnership brings together a philanthropic foundation with a global environmental governance body, ensuring that the Prize aligns with international biodiversity objectives while remaining grounded in real-world impact.
The Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted in 1992, provides the principal global framework for biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and the fair sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources. Through its involvement, the CBD Secretariat helps position the MIDORI Prize within broader international efforts, linking individual achievements to collective global goals.
The 2026 Award Ceremony and Award Winners Forum will be held on 27 August 2026 in Tokyo, Japan. These events are expected to contribute to global momentum around the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP 17), scheduled to take place in Yerevan, Armenia. COP 17 will be convened under the theme “Taking action for Nature,” emphasizing implementation and accountability during a critical phase for global biodiversity commitments.
Honoring remarkable accomplishments spanning a wide array of pursuits
One hallmark of the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity is its ability to honor outstanding achievements across a range of fields, and instead of centering on a single discipline, the Prize recognizes that meaningful advances in biodiversity conservation rely on complementary efforts that span scientific, social, and political spheres.
Historically, these award categories have covered practical execution, scientific inquiry, and both policy development and public education. Individuals honored for implementation are usually those who transform knowledge into real-world action, delivering conservation outcomes through on-the-ground projects, partnerships with local communities, or responsible resource stewardship. Recipients recognized for science and research deepen insight into ecosystems, species, and ecological processes, providing the evidence needed to guide informed decisions. At the same time, those acknowledged for policy and enlightenment play an essential role in crafting legislation, shaping governance, and elevating public understanding.
This comprehensive approach mirrors the complex realities of biodiversity challenges and highlights that no single pathway can succeed in isolation. By recognizing achievements across these dimensions, the Prize encourages cross‑sector dialogue and emphasizes the value of cohesive, well‑integrated strategies.
A decade shaped by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
The importance of the MIDORI Prize has grown consistently as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) gained adoption, a plan ratified at the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD in 2022. This Framework functions as a global guide intended to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, presenting 23 actionable targets that address the primary drivers of ecological damage while promoting sustainable use and equitable benefit-sharing.
Achieving the ambitions of the KMGBF requires a whole-of-society approach, engaging governments, the private sector, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and individuals alike. The MIDORI Prize actively reinforces this vision by honoring individuals who demonstrate leadership and creative thinking in pushing these objectives forward. By doing so, it turns the Framework’s targets into clear illustrations of advancement, making formerly abstract aims more concrete and easier to grasp.
As the 2030 deadline approaches, the importance of scaling up effective solutions becomes increasingly clear. Recognition initiatives such as the MIDORI Prize can accelerate this process by amplifying successful models and encouraging their replication in different contexts.
Building a legacy of global impact
Since its creation during the International Year of Biodiversity in 2010, the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity has honored 21 individuals representing 20 countries, reflecting the worldwide scope of biodiversity issues and the shared importance of conservation. Spanning tropical rainforests, coral reef habitats, urban environments, and farmland, the achievements of previous recipients show that meaningful progress can emerge through many different approaches.
The legacy of the Prize reaches well beyond honoring individuals, as its award ceremonies and related forums create spaces for exchanging knowledge, building networks, and encouraging collaboration, allowing winners to discuss their experiences and learn from each other. Such interactions nurture a worldwide community of practice committed to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.
Furthermore, public acknowledgment can boost an awardee’s profile and trustworthiness, helping them obtain funding, shape policy decisions, and grow their programs. In doing so, the Prize serves as a powerful driver that amplifies individual contributions and supports wider systemic transformation.
Public participation and the nomination process
By inviting the public to submit nominations, the MIDORI Prize reinforces the idea that safeguarding biodiversity is a shared responsibility, allowing communities, organizations, and individuals to highlight initiatives that might remain overlooked, particularly in regions or disciplines where acknowledgment is scarce.
The nomination window for the 2026 Prize extends from 2 February to 31 March 2026, during which entries are evaluated using criteria that highlight measurable results, inventive approaches, and consistency with global biodiversity goals. By following this review process, the Prize aims to recognize individuals whose work provides meaningful insights and motivates others engaged in the same field.
Public participation in the nomination process also serves an educational purpose, helping expand public insight into biodiversity challenges and the people striving to address them. As individuals look into potential nominees and their work, they develop a more concrete understanding of the practical efforts that support environmental sustainability.
Looking forward to 2026 and the years that follow
As global attention turns to COP 17 and the ongoing implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, initiatives like the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity gain even deeper relevance, maintaining progress, showcasing key accomplishments, and reaffirming to the international community that individual leadership remains a potent driver of meaningful change.
The 2026 Award Ceremony and Award Winners Forum in Tokyo are expected to provide an opportunity for meaningful dialogue and reflection at a pivotal time for biodiversity governance, and by uniting award recipients, policymakers, scholars, and practitioners, these gatherings will cultivate collective understanding and highlight the pressing need for coordinated action.
Over the decade that will shape the planet’s biological diversity, acknowledging and empowering those who set the standard is not merely symbolic but a strategic commitment to the ideas, methods, and alliances essential for protecting nature today and in the years ahead. The MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity serves as clear evidence of the influence dedicated individuals can exert when their contributions are recognized, elevated, and linked to global sustainability initiatives.