The 20th BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation celebrate and reaffirm the active commitment of multiple actors to preserving life on Earth

“With this ceremony concluding the 20th edition of the BBVA Foundation’s Biodiversity Conservation Awards we both celebrate and prolong a longstanding commitment to nature conservation based on scientific knowledge, field programs, and environmental communication and awareness,” Rafael Pardo continued. “In these two decades we have lent sustained support and recognition to the scientific community in the areas of ecology and conservation biology, a wide array of associations engaging in effective programs to conserve habitats and species, public institutions and agencies, and environmental communicators.”

The Foundation’s Director used the occasion of this 20th anniversary to announce the launch of two new categories in the forthcoming edition of the awards: one for biodiversity conservation in Africa, and the other for environmental awareness and outreach worldwide. Additionally, the Biophilia Award, addressing environmental concerns from the perspective of the humanities and social sciences, will become part of the larger biodiversity conservation family, which will henceforth comprise the following award categories: actions in Spain; actions in Latin America; actions in Africa; and actions worldwide; environmental education, communication and awareness in Spain; environmental education, communication and awareness worldwide; and contributions from the humanities and social sciences to the analysis of nature and its relationship with society. This family of awards stands alongside the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change and Environmental Sciences.

Despite “an international context that has seemingly broken with decades of public and private commitment to achieving a new balance between human development and nature preservation, with phenomena like denialism or the underplaying of the environmental crisis, the cutting or even dismantling of agencies, policies, and funding for nature conservation programs, along with cultural attacks on science and environmental values,” the Foundation’s Director remained convinced that “there are more reasons for hope than despair,” since in many countries, Spain among them, there is “a broad, structured environmental awareness among the public that cannot easily be eroded through self-serving campaigns and purely ideological approaches.” This sentiment, moreover, is overlaid by “robust public policies, institutions, and agencies specializing in the management of diverse facets and areas of the environment, companies at the forefront of their sectors for whom sustainability is part of their operations and identity, advanced scientific and technological research, a wide network of conservation organizations of various sizes, connected to each other through transnational alliances, and, last but not least, eminent media outlets and professionals who never cease in their efforts to relay the best science to the public, and keep them informed about the key environment issues of the day.”

“We have to call on leading elites in all countries and regions to make significant advances in raising public ethical standards and improving the regulatory and institutional architecture of the rule of law in the 21st century, so it not only supports the separation of powers, pluralism and peaceful coexistence, rights and freedoms, and the expansion of welfare, but also promotes respect for nature and life in all its expressions, values, and objectives, all of them widely shared by citizens,” said Rafael Pardo in closing.

Award for Biodiversity Conservation in Spain: The Eremita Project

The reintroduction to the Iberian Peninsula of one of the world’s most endangered birds

“In the past fifty years, the world population of the northern bald ibis (a blackish bird with a long curved beak and distinctive head) has slumped by 90 percent as a consequence of hunting, pesticides and land-use changes, particularly the turning of pastureland into crop fields. But the Eremita Project launched by the Centro de Conservación de la Biodiversidad Zoobotánico de Jerez (ZBJ) Alberto Durán – a public institution under Jerez City Council – has successfully reintroduced the species in the La Janda district (Cádiz), establishing a wild population of over 250 individuals spread over four breeding colonies.

In 1999, a group of European experts raised the alarm about the imminent threat of extinction hanging over the ibis. In response, the ZBJ signed up to an international captive breeding program in a bid to re-establish the species in the Iberian Peninsula. In 2008, the project was able to celebrate the considerable achievement of the first reproduction in the wild of captive-born birds. Since then “the population has continued to expand and we are getting between 30 and 35 chicks per year, so we are pretty optimistic that the population is on the road to becoming self-sufficient,” remarked ZBJ vet and biologist-keeper Mariano Cuadrado in her words at the ceremony.

The number of breeding pairs and wild-born chicks is growing year by year, with as many as 32 nests over three colonies recorded in 2024, producing a total of 64 hatchlings. What’s more, other projects are now pursuing the same objective, including a reintroduction campaign in the Empordà region of Catalonia, and the connecting-up of the Cadiz population and another in Austria through the re-opening of a migratory route with captive-born birds guided by ultralight aircraft.

“The Eremita Project shows that collaboration, professionalism and perseverance can reverse crisis situations,” Cuadrado continued. “It also teaches us that protecting nature is not a utopian ideal. The Mediterranean basin is one of Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems, and we have a duty to preserve it. The survival of the planet and of ourselves as a species depends on it.”

Award for Biodiversity Conservation in Latin America: The Migratory Shorebirds Project

Working for “a planet where all forms of life can move, thrive and coexist”

In 2011, Asociación Calidris began monitoring the migratory shorebirds that stopped over on Colombia’s beaches. Before long, they were forging links with similar campaigns in other countries, leading to the launch of the Migratory Shorebirds Project, which now brings together organizations from all eleven countries with Latin American Pacific coastlines, from Mexico to Chile, along with others from the U.S. and Canada. “These birds travel the entire continent during their life cycle, breeding in the American Arctic before moving to tropical and subtropical areas to spend the winter. But these impressive journeys also involve the transport of biomass and energy between ecosystems. They are great allies of the mangroves and marshes that are so important to the societies and communities of Latin America,” said Diana Lucía Eusse, associate researcher at Asociación Calidris and coordinator of the Migratory Shorebirds Project.

When bird counts identified human activities that potentially threatened their survival, the network began to engage directly in conservation activities. In the process of doing so, they concluded that a vital factor was to combine the best scientific knowledge with the direct involvement of local people. “For a long time, conservation issues were entrusted solely to people with conservation studies, but in Latin America, with all our social, political and economic complexities, solutions have to be far more broad-based,” explained the association’s director Luis Fernando Castillo. Groups in some countries work with local producers to encourage the birds’ use of salt and shrimp ponds; others have joined with governments and even property developers to create exclusion zones on beaches.

“Migratory birds remind us that mobility is an essential part of life, and that protecting their routes is also about upholding our dignity as humans,” said Castillo during his acceptance speech. “Behind every flight, every journey, is a story of exploration, hope and resilience. Shorebirds will continue to migrate, soaring through skies and crossing continents. Let this award serve to remind us that their flight and ours are interconnected, and that we are still in time to ensure a planet where all forms of life can move, thrive and coexist.”

Worldwide Award for Biodiversity Conservation: The Elephant Crisis Fund

Elephants, a keystone species who “need a voice in Africa’s development”

English subtitles available.

“We are living through the sixth mass extinction – life on our planet hasn’t suffered such devastation since the meteor strike that killed the dinosaurs. It can feel overwhelming, paralyzing even. But it is not hopeless,” said Frank Pope, CEO of Save the Elephants, collecting the award on behalf of the project.

In 2013, after 20 years in operation, the organization set up the Elephant Crisis Fund to support small, community-led conservation projects in 34 African countries, at times using them as a testing ground to attract much larger funding. Initially set up to tackle the crisis of the ivory trade, the Fund has scored some notable successes such as the restoration of the elephant population in Zakouma National Park in Chad. In 2011, only one calf was born there, but thanks to a project funded by Save the Elephants, just seven years later there were 127 births. “That’s what science-driven hope looks like,” said Pope, reflecting on this acheivement.

When China, the world’s biggest market, announced in 2018 that it was closing down its domestic trade in ivory, the organization went on to address what had since become the biggest threat to the elephant’s survival: coexistence with a human population that is the fastest growing in the world. Working with partners across the continent, they came up with a “toolbox” offering local communities a range of solutions to the various threats the animals posed. “Because, when all’s said and done, the future of African elephants will be determined by the people who live alongside them.”

The CEO of the awardee organization pointed out that elephants are key to Africa’s prosperity, due to their ecological role but also as a symbol of biodiversity. “Elephants need a voice in Africa’s development – not as obstacles, but as guardians of ecosystems we depend on for the water we drink and the air we breathe. Because where we lose elephants – and the biodiversity that live under their umbrella – they are almost impossible to bring back. When species go extinct, that door is slammed shut forever. Elephants represent and defend the wild. When we invest in them, we invest in the wild itself. The elephants have found their voice,” said Pope in concluding. “Now let’s make sure the world is listening.”

Dissemination (audiovisual formats): José Ramón González Pan and Josefina Maestre

Education and quality journalism: the keys to tackling today’s environmental challenges

For José Ramón González Pan, the head of the Publications Service at the Autonomous National Parks Agency, protecting biodiversity is not just a matter for a few enthusiastic conservationists. “Biodiversity,” he explained “is not only about what is rare, scarce, and endemic. It is about the whole complex web of living beings that creates the magic of life and its continuing presence on this planet. We are biodiversity. The future of biodiversity is ours, our own evolution determines its path, and our welfare depends on its proper conservation.”

In his extensive career, González Pan has been a scriptwriter and director on multiple audiovisual

productions in the realm of environmental education. A particular highlight was his documentary series for Spanish national television De parque en parque, a journey through the country’s most emblematic natural spaces. After starting out in 1981 as an environmental educator and monitor, in 1987 he became the first head of the National Center for Environmental Education (CENEAM), where he was among the pioneers in incorporating environmental education into the Spanish school system, designing and producing the first training programs with a cross-cutting approach.

For the awardee, “environmental education is the weapon, the strategy, and the fundamental tool for us to become aware of two things. One of them is where we live, the local environment we are part of, […] but we also have to address what’s happening globally in an honest and sensible manner.” He also declared himself a firm advocate of “using all available means and resources” in environmental communication, incorporating technological tools such as AI, so messages “reach every home, school and workplace.”

Pioneering environmental reporter Josefina Maestre issued a similar call for quality journalism that fights to keep environmental issues in the foreground at a time when, she believes, they are being swamped by disinformation and fake news: “It may be hard to believe, but we are having to fight to defend essential journalistic values… When did a part of society lose sight of the idea that we have a right to truthful, accurate reporting? We have never needed it more; now that it is becoming harder to check and verify sources.”

Maestre has helmed the Radio 5 program Reserva natural since the year 2008. Now into its 28th season on the airwaves, Reserva natural is the longest-standing nationwide radio program dedicated to the environment. Looking back on its success, she reflects: “In Reserva natural we have had the fortune to work with professionals skilled at conveying the beauty and emotion that landscapes evoke – for we live after all in a splendid country with spectacular biodiversity. And they have also been good at explaining the threats to this biodiversity in a properly engaging way.”

The award-winning journalist remarked that “we are living in historic times, faced with a convergence of environmental threats of a magnitude rarely experienced.” She talked, finally, about “the heavy responsibility that this situation imposes; a responsibility that nonetheless unites us and that weighs less when it is shared: each professional in their own way from their own vantage point: journalists and scientists, politicians and environmentalists, economists, artists, and lawyers.”

Dissemination (other formats): Mónica Fernández-Aceytuno and Carlos Fresneda

Caring for nature through words and solutions journalism

Mónica Fernández-Aceytuno abandoned her career as a biologist to devote herself to writing about nature. Her first port of call, in 1991, was the Cadena SER radio program Hoy por hoy, where she produced a daily section, Parte natural, giving news on plants in bloom or animal migrations, providing the latest ozone layer readings or broadcasting the sounds of the woods, fields and sea… “I thought nature should get a similar treatment to the weather. Why do we report daily on whether or not it will rain, but never announce the arrival of the swifts, those marvelous birds that sleep in the air, or the fact that the tuna are passing through the strait of Gibraltar.”

She then went on to write for newspapers like ABC, where she championed the power of the written word to bring us closer to the nature around us. This idea found later expression in her Diccionario Aceytuno, a refuge for the rarely-used nature terms she would pick up from fishermen and farmers: a lexical heritage that the journalist equates to artistic heritage: “The dictionary was all about conserving the words these people used when telling me their stories. I was totally in awe of the richness of their language. We have lost so many words like maresía, the smell of the sea, or charabasquear, the sound we make walking through leaves, or the word “aura” used to describe the wind in the trees.”

“Accumulating information, removed from instinct, leads us to turn away from nature. But we can also get back to her via the suspension bridge of words,” she added. “We see more if we can give it a name.”

Carlos Fresneda opened with a list of good news stories about the environment that set the tone for a speech focused on conveying hope: “Journalism schools continue to teach that ‘good news is no news.’ We cannot hide the fact that we are living in one of the darkest moments in recent history, but we must try to go beyond that and explore solutions, detect emerging trends, and tell stories that inspire.”

The Paris correspondent for newspaper El Mundo has combined his work reporting from some of the West’s major cities (London, New York, Milan) with the post of environment correspondent. He explained that writing about nature has come as a “breath of fresh air,” stopping him from turning into a “sad chronicler of everyday life,” and providing a way to “keep the flame of hope alive, despite the storm clouds on the horizon.” He also spoke about how caring for the environment is crucial to our whole existence: “The environment is nothing less than life itself: the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.”

The journalist recalled the lessons learned from the activists and scientists he had been lucky enough to interview, which he gathered together in his blog Ecohéroes, later published in book form. “It is hard to demand space for the environment, unless a disaster occurs, like the recent fires or the ‘dana’. But there is always a gap, which I have tried to fill with positive stories, with solutions.” In this same spirit, he closed his speech quoting from an interview he conducted with primatologist Jane Goodall, who died this year: “Hope is the indomitable human spirit; the ability to achieve the impossible and not give up until you get there.”

About the BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation

The conserving of global biodiversity stands alongside climate change as the core environmental issue of our time. For more than twenty years now, the BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation have recognized the work of people and organizations that have achieved relevant and lasting results in the protection of biodiversity, and professionals from the world of communication who disseminate the best scientific knowledge and report on the environmental crisis to raise awareness and alert society to the challenges ahead.

Each of the three project categories, in Spain, Latin America and the World, comes with a cash prize of 250,000 euros, while the two knowledge dissemination and communication categories are funded with 80,000 euros each, giving a combined monetary amount that is among the largest of any international award scheme in the environment sphere.

In their first twenty editions, the Biodiversity Conservation Awards have found their way to a diverse set of organizations that have taken effective steps to protect nature, based on sound science. These range from major ecologist groups, like WWF and SEO/Birdlife, to Spanish public agencies undertaking vital tasks for the protection of nature, like environmental police force SEPRONA or the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, by way of associations concerned with the conservation of species and their ecosystems, like the brown bear, the bearded vulture, the Iberian lynx, the imperial eagle or sea turtles in Spain; the monarch butterfly, bats, amphibians or the southern right whale in Latin America; and the snow leopard in Asia, elephants, lions and other large mammals in Africa or the orangutans of Indonesia in the worldwide category of the awards.

At the same time, the BBVA Foundation awards have recognized the vital role of environmental communicators in keeping conservation issues at the forefront of the news agenda, distinguishing media journalists and other communicators that have disseminated knowledge of the natural world through multiple channels and formats, from illustration and photography to audio recordings and documentary films.

The jury deciding the awards (see list below) is made up of scientists working in the environment field and environmental communicators, who bring to the table complementary viewpoints on nature conservation.

Jury members

The jury in this edition was chaired by Rafael Pardo, Director of the BBVA Foundation. Remaining members were Marta Coll, Research Professor at the Institut de Ciències del Mar, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC); José Luis Gallego, Head of the Environment section of newspaper El Confidencial and director of Ecogallego; Silvia García, Environment specialist on news program Antena 3 Noticias; Teresa Guerrero, Head of the Science and Environment section of newspaper El Mundo; Ainhoa Magrach, Ikerbasque Research Professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change and President of the Ecological Association of Terrestrial Ecology (AEET); Eva Rodríguez, Head of Environment and Society section of the Agencia SINC scientific news service; and Anna Traveset, Research Professor at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, CSIC-Universitat de Les Iles Balears.