The Earth Prize 2025: 17-year-old Nigerian named Africa’s Winner for project turning neglected city areas into eco parks
In an effort to bring green spaces to dense urban areas, a 17-year-old Nigerian has been named as the African Winner of The Earth Prize 2025. Amara C. Nwuneli’s solution is ‘Preserve Our Roots’, a project turning underserved urban sites into green community hubs.
Amara, a Nigerian-American activist, was motivated by the conditions of her local environment. In Lagos, Nigeria, a city of around 17 million people, green spaces cover only 3% of the total land area, leading to rising urban heat, poor air quality, biodiversity loss and declining mental and physical well-being. In response, Amara created Preserve Our Roots, a youth-led NGO turning forgotten urban spaces into green sustainability parks. The first pilot park was built with recycled materials in Ikota, Nigeria, thanks to the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donors, and also empowers urban youth through climate education and storytelling.
Amara impressed The Earth Prize’s expert jury with her final pitch, having excelled in the programme’s incubation and mentorship phases, and will now receive $12.5K to scale up her idea further.
Amara commented:
“I’m incredibly grateful to The Earth Prize for this recognition, which is a huge boost to our mission of redefining urban sustainability through GREEN Sustainability Parks. These eco-parks serve as living classrooms and blueprints for resilient cities. With this funding, we will establish three more parks in underserved Nigerian communities, bringing climate education, green spaces, and sustainable infrastructure to tens of thousands. This work is personal to me—millions, including myself, have grown up where nature is a luxury, and now, thanks to The Earth Prize, this vision is no longer just a dream, it’s becoming a reality!”
The Earth Prize aims to empower the next generation with all the tools they need to develop their eco solutions for real life impact, including one-to-one mentoring, learning resources and funding of $100K for the winning teams to scale up. Since 2021, The Earth Prize has reached over 15,000 young people across 160 countries and territories, and awarded $500K to the top teams.
Previous applicants have garnered global media attention in outlets such as Forbes, Business Insider, EuroNews, Positive.News and UN Today, and continue to scale up their solutions after the competition has ended. For instance, team Delavo (Winners of The Earth Prize 2023), who invented a cutting-edge filter that recycles up to 90% of toxic laundry waste water, partnered with a national manufacturer and applied for a patent to make their solution a reality.
The Earth Prize was started by The Earth Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization based in Geneva, as a way to empower and educate young people to tackle environmental challenges. As young people live through and observe extreme weather events such as the LA wildfires, many are mobilised to act - choosing to create solutions for our planet rather than march in protest.
A recent study showed that 59% of youth and young adults are very or extremely worried about climate change, and more than 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning.
Peter McGarry, Founder of The Earth Foundation, commented on this year’s competition:
“The 2025 winners of The Earth Prize are a true testament to the boundless creativity and passion of today's youth. Their bold solutions tackle the most urgent environmental challenges with the power to transform our world. I invite everyone to engage with these remarkable ideas, support their implementation, and be inspired to take action in their own communities. Together, we can turn these promising innovations into global environmental solutions.”
Public voting for the Global Winner is now open! Cast your vote on The Earth Prize website until Tuesday, April 22 (Earth Day):
https://www.theearthprize.org/vote
