On the 26th of October, west African conservationist Iroro Tanshi was honoured with the 2023 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award from the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Tanshi won the award for conserving West Africa’s last two primary forests– the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary and Cross River National Park.
In her speech, Tashi said: “This is not just for me this is for all of us and for the nominees,” adding that “nature” was the biggest winner.
The Pritzker Award, presented annually, carries a prize of $100,000 that is funded through a portion of a $20 million gift to UCLA from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation. It is the field’s first major honour specifically for innovators in their early career — those whose work stands to benefit most from the prize money and the prestige it conveys.
Tanshi implemented an effective wildfire prevention program, informed by ecology research and community input, to warn people against dangerous burning activities on high-fire-risk days. Like many places worldwide, West African forests are threatened by wildfires that are increasing in frequency and severity due to climate change. Logging and poaching pose additional threats to the forest ecosystems.
Tanshi serves as the co-director of the Small Mammal Conservation Organization, a grassroots initiative dedicated to preserving endangered species like drill monkeys and the short-tailed roundleaf bat, all while prioritizing the well-being of local communities.
Raised in a modest oil town in southern Nigeria, Tanshi experienced the detrimental impacts of the petroleum industry on the Niger Delta firsthand. This fueled her interest in ecology and led her to initially focus on bat conservation. Over time, her dedication expanded to encompass the conservation of entire ecosystems in West Africa. Tanshi aspires to extend her efforts continent-wide through collaborative work with like-minded, community-centred conservation and research groups.
“My team has moved from just one or two staff to 75 people” in the past five years, Tanshi said. “This army of people staffing the field will work together to change firescapes, which is what they are, back to forest-scapes.”
Tanshi was nominated by Timothy Watkins Sr., president and CEO of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the quality of life of South Los Angeles residents.
The other two finalists for the award were Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, executive director of environmental nonprofit Geoversity, and Hana Raza, chairperson of Leopards Beyond Borders.
The panel of judges who chose Tanshi as this year’s winner was made up of Antonio Bernardo, dean of UCLA Anderson School of Management; Darnell Hunt, UCLA executive vice chancellor and provost; Jeanne Holm, deputy mayor of finance and innovation for the city of Los Angeles; Hans Mehn, a partner at Generation Investment Management; and Abel Valenzuela Jr., interim dean of social sciences and a professor at UCLA.
Tanshi received the Pritzker Award from Tony Pritzker, who founded the award and is a member of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability’s advisory board.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block noted the importance of the moment to the university in his remarks.
“One of our university’s great roles is to act as a convener — bringing together brilliant minds from diverse backgrounds to better understand and address the world’s pressing challenges,” Block said. “This award is a perfect example of that.”
