Nina Gualinga wins UCLA’s Pritzker Award for environmental innovation

Ecuadorian Indigenous rights activist Nina Gualinga was awarded the 2024 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award by the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. She was honored during a ceremony at UCLA’s Hershey Hall on Oct. 30.

Gualinga received the award for her work advocating for Indigenous rights and environmental justice, leading to significant policy changes that protect crucial ecosystems in the Amazon and beyond.

At 8 years old, she witnessed an oil company representative arrive in her home of Sarayaku and reveal plans for extraction. Hearing the women of her community reject the sale of their land, Gualinga resolved to protect her home by campaigning for the legal recognition of nature’s rights. 

“This award is not only mine,” Gualinga said. “I do what I do because I have been inspired and encouraged by other women in my life.” 

The Pritzker Award, presented annually, carries a prize of $100,000, which is funded through part of a $20 million gift to UCLA from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation. It is the field’s first major award specifically for innovators in their early careers — those whose work stands to benefit most from the prize money and visibility it provides. 

Gualinga has become an international voice for Indigenous environmental justice, addressing climate change and land preservation at platforms like United Nations climate change conferences. Her advocacy in Ecuador contributed to the country’s recent decision to permanently ban oil exploitation in Yasuní National Park and was instrumental in Panama’s Supreme Court decision to preserve Bosque Donoso National Park by declaring a major copper mine unconstitutional. 

Gualinga is co-director of Mujeres Amazónicas, an Indigenous women-led organization that empowers groups to protect their land, rights and cultural heritage in the face of extractive industries and climate threats across the Ecuadorian Amazon. She plans to amplify her vision globally, urging governments to honor Indigenous sovereignty and prioritize women-led conservation. 

“This award will allow us to build out a center for Indigenous women in Ecuador to come together, to strategize, to create peaceful resistance, to heal together,” Gualinga said.

Gualinga was nominated by Farwiza Farhan, Indonesian conservationist and 2021 Pritzker Award winner. The other two finalists for the award were Adenike Oladosu Titilope, founder and executive director of ILeadclimate Action Initiative, and Callie Veelenturf, founder and executive director of The Leatherback Project. 

The panel of judges who chose Gualinga as the 2024 award winner included Antonio Bernardo, dean of the UCLA Anderson School of Management; Jeanne Holm, deputy mayor of finance and innovation for the city of Los Angeles; Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park, dean of the Samueli School of Engineering and UCLA professor; and Abel Valenzuela Jr., dean of social sciences and UCLA professor.

Gualinga received the Pritzker Award from Tony Pritzker, managing partner of The Pritzker Group. UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability director Marilyn Raphael, who was also in attendance, emphasized the importance of the award ceremony in celebrating a shared commitment to environmental justice.

“This award is always a highlight of the year for all of us at UCLA,” Raphael said. “Working on the world’s toughest challenges is rewarding, and this ceremony gives us a chance to recognize our hard work, share ideas and promote the next generation who are working to solve these challenges.”