• The future of paralysis treatment

  Neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine is developing groundbreaking bioengineering technologies to treat spinal cord injury.

• A quest to save India’s rainforests

  Romulus Whitaker’s childhood fascination with snakes has led him to devote his life to protecting the environment, in particular rainforests.

• Use indigenous peoples’ knowledge to map resources and prevent conflict around climate in Chad

  The reality of climate change is known to few better than the people of Chad. The country’s largest lake, which bears the nation’s name and supports 30 million people, has almost vanished in barely two generations.

• Eradicate malnutrition in Tanzania, one fortified bag at a time

  Poor nutrition contributes to 15,000 preventable child deaths daily worldwide. American social entrepreneur Felix Brooks-church has an answer: an ingenious system to ensure that each meal consumed by every mother and infant living in an underprivileged society contains essential, life-saving nutrients.

• Explore and study the world’s northern-most caves for new insights into climate change in the Arctic

  British climate researcher Gina Moseley will cross one of the world’s last frontiers in exploration when she abseils into the planet’s most northerly unexplored Arctic caves seeking clues to the planet’s climatic past.

• Promote local initiatives for biodiversity conservation in Nepal’s Trans-Himalaya

  Local people from one of the world’s wildest and most isolated places, the mountainous Himalaya region of Humla in Nepal, are being enlisted as frontline conservators to rescue dwindling wild animal populations – from snow leopards to wild yaks.

• Explore and protect the Indian Ocean’s deep coral reefs

  A hundred metres or more beneath the ocean surface in the Maldives lies a twilight zone whose wondrous corals and strange life remain unexplored.

• Saving the sacred condor

  Two centuries ago, the Andean condor soared across the skies of the Andes, but today its population has been massively reduced mainly by human interventions. For over three decades, Argentine biologist Luis Jácome has been working to save one of the world’s largest flying birds from extinction.

• The Biologist Championing Bats

  Mexican biologist Rodrigo Medellín has devoted his life to demonstrating how bats, one of the most universally feared and hated mammals, are, in fact, a boon to humanity and agriculture.

• Reviving India’s blighted lakes

  In the face of rampant urbanization and the severe consequences of climate change, Indian environmentalist Arun Krishnamurthy has mobilized the public, including scores of young volunteers, to help clean, restore and rehabilitate his country’s lakes.

• Saving lives on India’s roads

  Following a distress call informing him that his cousin had died in a road accident where no bystanders came forward to support the victim, Piyush Tewari was propelled into finding solutions to this problem in India and has since dedicated himself to saving thousands of lives across the country and beyond.

• How a bird saved a forest

  Anita Studer, a Swiss ornithologist who went to Brazil to study its rich array of bird life, has, through sheer determination and dedication, inspired Brazilians to save their forests and changed thousands of lives for the better in what is now her second home.

• Rolex Awards - Women changing the world

  Strong, resilient women are leading the way to a better future with support from the Rolex Awards for Enterprise.

• Venturer in the underworld

  The hidden realm of caves has opened up a new world to scientists and explorers thanks to speleologists such as Francesco Sauro whose many expeditions have provided an archive of time for future generations.

• Africa’s ‘Father of Turtles’

  Intrigued by turtles and tortoises as a young man, Tomas Diagne has devoted his life to studying and conserving these endangered species in his native Senegal and across Africa.

• The call of the cloud forest

  Sri Lankan conservationist Rohan Pethiyagoda has devoted more than two decades to a campaign to engage his fellow citizens in the regeneration of his island nation’s unique highland ecosystem, once defined by rich tropical forests shrouded by mist.

• Rwanda’s uplifting regal bird

  Using education and persuasion, Olivier Nsengimana has liberated the much sought-after grey crowned crane from the gardens of Rwanda’s wealthy citizens and is now using a strategic wildlife management plan to ensure these magnificent birds flourish in their original habitats.

• Eye test brings equality

  A billion people across the globe suffer from readily treatable eyesight problems. At least a third of them live in places where modern optical treatment never reaches, but that is rapidly changing, thanks to the inspired vision of British ophthalmologist Andrew Bastawrous.

• Stars of the deep

  Little was known about the endangered whale shark, the world’s biggest fish, until Australian marine scientist Brad Norman found a way to identify individual animals using an algorithm developed by NASA.

• Medical alerts from a sticker on your hand

  From creating a pain-free vaccine patch, Australian scientist Mark Kendall is now developing microwearable devices that send early warnings when patients are experiencing events like heart attacks.

• Darkening hues of Greenland

  A strange new life is blossoming within the icy carapace of Greenland, daubing thousands of square kilometres of pristine white landscape in an eerie patina of greens, reds, browns, purple and black.

• Protect a giant fish for the Amazon - Rolex Awards

  Brazilian ecologist João Campos-Silva is working to protect the largest scaled freshwater fish in the world. Discover how doing so is lifting up local communities.

• Securing Nigeria’s food supply - Video

  In 2010, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a Nigerian social entrepreneur, won a Rolex Award for Enterprise for creating a radio station to advise smallholder farmers.

• Securing Nigeria's food supply

  In 2010, Nigerian social entrepreneur Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu won a Rolex Award for Enterprise for creating a radio station to advise smallholder farmers. Now, his latest project, a network of solar-powered, walk-in cold rooms, is revolutionizing Nigeria’s food supply chain.

• Farming by radio - Rolex Awards

  Nigeria has Africa’s biggest population and economy, but poverty afflicts the countryside where smallholders eke out a living. Thanks to Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu and his network of radio stations, they are now learning how to improve farm incomes.

• Help paralysed people walk again

  For scientist Grégoire Courtine, a broken back need no longer be a barrier to motion. Discover how his neuroprosthetic "bridge" is helping the paralysed walk again.

• The future of paralysis treatment - Video

  Around 20 million people worldwide have a spinal cord injury, which has a major impact on their quality of life.

• Rolex Awards - A self-made environmentalist in India - Video

  Romulus Whitaker turned a lifelong interest in reptiles, especially the king cobra, into a six decades’ long career of protecting the environment in his adoptive country of India.

• India’s unconventional conservationist - Rolex Awards

  Passionate about the natural world, Romulus Whitaker has gone from conserving reptiles to saving India’s rainforests through a network of research stations.

• Use indigenous peoples’ knowledge to map resources and prevent conflict around climate in Chad - Video

  The reality of climate change is known to few better than the people of Chad. The country’s largest lake, which bears the nation’s name and supports 30 million people, has almost vanished in barely two generations. For climate change and indigenous rights advocate Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, the tragedy also offers an opportunity to bring her people together to solve their crisis, using the unlikely medium of mapping.

• Eradicate malnutrition in Tanzania, one fortified bag at a time - Video

  Poor nutrition contributes to 15,000 preventable child deaths daily worldwide. American social entrepreneur Felix Brooks-church has an answer: an ingenious system to ensure that each meal consumed by every mother and infant living in an underprivileged society contains essential, life-saving nutrients. His project is bringing new life and hope to children in Tanzania, as a model for the world.

• 2019 Frequently Asked Questions - The Rolex Awards

  The Rolex Awards identify and invest in exceptional people around the world who are carrying out pioneering projects. Find out more about the Awards now.

• About the Rolex award for enterprise - Rolex Awards

  For four decades, through the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, Rolex has supported exceptional individuals who have the courage and conviction to take on major challenges; men and women who have a spirit of enterprise, initiating extraordinary projects that make the world a better place.

• Explore and study the world’s northern-most caves for new insights into climate change in the Arctic - Video

  British climate researcher Gina Moseley will cross one of the world’s last frontiers in exploration when she abseils into the planet’s most northerly unexplored Arctic caves seeking clues to the planet’s climatic past. Her world-first expedition seeks to expose the risk to humanity from polar regions now heating twice as fast as elsewhere – and threatening to drown coastal cities worldwide.

• Grain of hope - Rolex Awards

  Fonio is a delicious, healthy cereal eaten in West Africa. But for centuries it had a drawback – hours of pounding and winnowing were needed to remove the husks from the grain. Sanoussi Diakité invented a machine that removes them in a fraction of the time.

• A gift from the sky - Rolex Awards

  In many cities worldwide, rain is regarded as a nuisance to be quickly drained away. But not in Tokyo, where, thanks to a retired civil servant, people see rainwater as a precious commodity to be captured and used for daily life.

• Safe lamps save lives - Rolex Awards

  Sri Lankan surgeon Wijaya Godakumbura battled apathy and ignorance to prevent people being disfigured by burns caused by unstable, home-made lamps. His invention, the Safe Bottle Lamp, has saved many lives.

• Women doctors for telemedicine in Pakistan

  Dr Sara Saeed is pairing female doctors with digital technology for remote access to healthcare. Discover how her telemedicine model saves lives and empowers women.

• Ship of hope - Rolex Awards

  French engineer-turned-sailor Jacques Luc Autran made a series of journeys to bring medical relief, technical assistance and food to communities cut off by the sea.

• From taxis to beetles - Rolex Awards

  Pierre Morvan, who gave up driving taxis to become a world-renowned entomologist, has demonstrated how the study of ground beetles can improve our understanding of evolutionary change and how species are formed.

• Roadside rescue - Rolex Awards

  India has the highest number of road fatalities in the world, but thanks to Piyush Tewari, accident victims now have a much greater chance of receiving care at the scene – and surviving.

• Vital role for ancient medicine - Rolex Awards

  In remote Ladakh, a Tibetan herbal medicine has been prevented from dying out, thanks in part to the intervention of French ethno-pharmacologist Laurent Pordié.

• A vaccine revolution - Rolex Awards

  Biomedical engineer Mark Kendall is revolutionizing the way life-saving vaccines are delivered, lowering the cost of immunization in the developing world and dispensing with the needle and syringe.

• The hand puppet that saves lives

  Appalled by the deaths of thousands of children from preventable diseases in her country, an Ethiopian schoolteacher invented an entertaining way to inform youngsters about hygiene.

• Rapid malaria testing with no blood sample

  Ugandan IT specialist Brian Gitta has developed a portable device that detects malaria without a blood sample. Discover more about this powerful new medical technology.

• Waging war on superbugs

  Multi-drug resistant bacteria are threatening the gains of modern medicine. Hosam Zowawi is fighting back with rapid superbug tests and a communications plan for the Gulf states.

• Promoting propagation - Rolex Awards

  Captive breeding is the last hope for some endangered birds. American Billy Lee Lasley was working as a research endocrinologist at the San Diego Zoo when he developed a non-invasive method for determining the sex of birds.

• Getting to the core - Rolex Awards

  French glaciologist Bernard Francou extracted an ice core from deep inside an Andean glacier to provide an archive of climatic change over thousands of years.

• A mobile lifeline for mothers

  Saving the lives of mothers and babies who lack emergency obstetric care is the life’s calling of Aggrey Otieno, who is empowering impoverished Nairobi slum-dwellers through a telemedicine centre.

• Doctor to the world - Rolex Awards

  For almost four decades, physician Aldo Lo Curto has divided the year between his medical practice in northern Italy and making trips to heal, teach and live among the world’s indigenous people.

• Explore remote volcanoes affecting Earth’s climate

  Yves Moussallam is studying the unknown effect of volcanic gases on climate change. Discover how he is mixing tradition and technology to explore remote volcanoes.

• Patagonia’s wild depths

  Chilean Patagonia is a windswept maze of fjords, channels and islands. German and Chilean biologist and marine explorer Vreni Häussermann has dedicated her life to exploring and protecting this biodiversity hotspot.

• After the Ice Maiden - Rolex Awards

  Johan Reinhard’s discovery of the 500 year-old Inca Ice Maiden could have been his life’s high point, but he was not satisfied with this achievement. He was convinced that better preserved mummies were yet to be found, and he was determined to rescue the cultural patrimony of the Andean people.

• Climbing for the environment - Rolex Awards

  One of Japan’s most daring alpinists, Dr Jun’ichi Shinozaki researched the effects of global warming and pollution while climbing some of the world’s most famous peaks.

• The isle is full of wonder - Rolex Awards

  Jean-Francois Pernette has spent most of his life exploring caves. In 2000, he led a mission to the remote limestone islands of Última Esperanza, Patagonia, where he made breathtaking discoveries.

• A passion for the Arctic

  Explorer Lonnie Dupre has raised awareness of the fragility of the world’s frozen places and drawn attention to the effects of global warming.

• The frozen rainforest

  Glacial microbiologist Joseph Cook says the top few metres of the Arctic’s ice are like a “frozen rainforest”. His research is a journey of discovery that reveals how ice micro-organisms on the Greenland ice sheet shape our world.

• Ancient art of communication - Rolex Awards

  French explorer Luc-Henri Fage discovered prehistoric cave paintings in Kalimantan nearly 30 years ago and campaigned to save these artistic treasures.

• Riding high in the rainforest - Rolex Awards

  Biologist turned entrepreneur Donald Perry has made it possible for tourists, students and scientists alike to explore the biological wonderland that thrives at the top of the rainforest, a realm he calls the “Arboreal Continent”.

• Inside the labyrinth

  Exploring subterranean caves in South America’s table-top mountains where no human has ever set foot, Italian geologist Francesco Sauro is not only finding clues to evolution on Earth – he is helping to prepare for expeditions to other planets.

• Studying caves to predict earthquakes - Rolex Awards

  By studying caves for traces of ancient seismic activity, French geologist Eric Gilli developed a new method to predict earthquakes.

• A giant task - Rolex Awards

  Palaeontologist Elizabeth Nicholls overcame numerous obstacles to extract the fossilized remains of a 220 million year-old, giant marine reptile in a remote region of Canada.

• Footprints to the past - Rolex Awards

  Prehistoric animal tracks at Pehuen Có in Argentina are threatened by rising sea levels and human destruction but the pioneering efforts of palaeontologist Teresa Manera de Bianco are helping to preserve them.

• Epic journeys

  One of South America’s greatest explorers, Cristian Donoso has led expeditions to the wilds of Patagonia and other inhospitable places, not purely for adventure but to gather invaluable knowledge about climate and history.

• Mosaic of underground beauty - Rolex Awards

  A man for whom adventure is part of life, Italian caver Antonio De Vivo has for years been exploring Mexico’s isolated Rio La Venta Canyon, making startling discoveries about pre-Columbian civilization.

• Race to save the seahorse

  Preserving the world’s natural heritage for future generations is part of what drives Amanda Vincent in her quest for the conservation of marine fish – and seahorses in particular.

• Conserving the ancient beauty of Petra - Rolex Awards

  Talal Akasheh has devoted much of his life to conserving the World Heritage Site at Petra in Jordan from the ravages of erosion, time and tourism.

• In search of the first Americans - Rolex Awards

  Arturo González’s expeditions through the flooded labyrinths far beneath the jungle covering Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula are shedding light on the origins of the Americas and challenging traditional theories about its earliest inhabitants.

• The lessons of Maya art - Rolex Awards

  Belgian archaeologist and art historian Martine Fettweis-Viénot has made painstaking copies of ancient murals from Mexico and Guatemala, leading her to new theories about their role in Maya society.

• A living museum - Rolex Awards

  Runa Khan has watched as traditional boats that used to ply Bangladesh’s waterways have been replaced by those with diesel engines. Determined to preserve traditional boat-building skills, she is now achieving her long-held dream of constructing a museum.

• Telling ancient tales - Rolex Awards

  A young Italian woman has set up a storytelling school to preserve Afghanistan’s oral heritage, give hope to the country’s youth and spread crucial development information.

• A user’s guide to Bhutan’s heritage - Rolex Awards

  On a trek through Bhutan in 1992, art restorer Sabine Cotte was struck by the beauty of the tiny kingdom’s ancient fortresses and temples – but also by the buildings’ cracked walls and crumbling foundations.

• World’s oldest art gallery - Rolex Awards

  Recognizing the window that European cave paintings open on prehistoric lifestyles and beliefs, Luc Jean-François Debecker has spent decades documenting the world’s oldest “art galleries” - the caves where Stone Age peoples recorded early life.

• A whistling world - Rolex Awards

  Under siege by modern communications, whistled and drummed languages are fast disappearing and survive only in remote biodiverse hotspots where people live in isolation. French bio-acoustician and linguist Julien Meyer is preserving these ancient modes of communication, which are at the interface between language and music.

• A village devoted to silk - Rolex Awards

  Kikuo Morimoto has revived the ancient silk-making tradition from near-extinction in war-ravaged Cambodia, training new weavers and creating self-sustaining workshops.

• Science at the service of art - Rolex Awards

  For more than 40 years, John Asmus’s work has taken many unexpected turns, from nuclear propulsion in space to high-tech art conservation.

• Hidden riches of the Himalayas - Rolex Awards

  For more than 30 years, George van Driem has trekked the Himalayas on a mission to save the region’s indigenous languages from extinction.

• Canada’s diverse voices - Rolex Awards

  Dora Nipp’s extensive oral history interviews documenting the lives and experiences of Canada’s immigrants celebrate their ethnic diversity and explore the contribution they have made to their new homeland.

• Treasures in the desert - Rolex Awards

  Dr Georgina Herrmann has been a key figure in unearthing the archaeological treasures of Merv on the ancient Silk Route in Central Asia.

• The sounds of Mexico’s heart - Rolex Awards

  Eduardo Llerenas was a professor of biochemistry until he transformed his life mid-career, devoting his time to preserving Mexico’s rich musical heritage.

• School on the taiga - Rolex Awards

  Children in the wilds of Siberia no longer have to be separated from their parents to get an education thanks to Alexandra Lavrillier, who has established a mobile school that brings together a modern curriculum and the vanishing Evenk culture.

• Ancient Maya’s modern teachings - Rolex Awards

  Archaeologist and anthropologist Anabel Ford has spent four decades studying the Maya civilization, principally at the vast and ancient city of El Pilar, which she discovered on the border of today’s Belize and Guatemala.

• The fabric of history - Rolex Awards

  Antiquity is woven into the sacred textiles of Bolivia’s mountain communities. But hundreds of these precious fabrics were stolen and sold to collectors in North America, depriving them of key artefacts of their cultural heritage.

• Race to save ancient cities - Rolex Awards

  Archaeologist Catherine Abadie-Reynal faced a race against the clock when the construction of a dam in Turkey was set to flood two ancient cities.

• Rewriting human prehistory - Rolex Awards

  Since 1991, palaeoanthropologist David Lordkipanidze has led an international team excavating one of the world’s foremost prehistoric sites where the bones of the earliest-known human ancestors to venture out of Africa have come to light.

• Stitches in time - Rolex Awards

  More than 22,000 women in India’s rugged Kutch region in the state of Gujarat have seen their lives transformed thanks to Chanda Shroff who revived the exquisite traditional hand embroidery to create a sustainable income for local women.

• Sounds cool - Rolex Awards

  American scientist Steven Garrett has developed sound-powered refrigeration equipment with the potential to eliminate chemicals that damage the ozone layer.

• Electronic ‘ears’ listen to world’s rainforests - Rolex Awards

  Topher White is offering scientists a way to study the health of rainforest wildlife populations. Discover how old technology is leading to innovative conservation.

• Technology for all - Rolex Awards

  Millions of blind people in India have been left out of the smartphone revolution but designer Sumit Dagar is aiming to open the door to technology for them.

• Fruit trees come in from the cold - Rolex Awards

  In a few hours, overnight frost can destroy a crop of fruit. But a machine invented in Uruguay is providing a solution in orchards on several continents.

• Unlocking secret behaviours - Rolex Awards

  Rory Wilson has developed a revolutionary device that employs mobile technology to track how animals, including humans, use energy.

• Software that cuts food waste - Rolex Awards

  Going hungry is a daily reality for an estimated 13 million Nigerians – but an enterprising software engineer is aiming to alleviate their suffering through a software service that redistributes food to people in need and reduces waste at the same time.

• Camel milk, anyone? - Rolex Awards

  Nancy Jones Abeiderrahmane opened Africa’s first camel milk dairy in Mauritania, bringing a paradigm shift for livestock husbandry and improving the quality of life for people living in her adoptive country.

• Recycling unrecyclable plastic waste - Rolex Awards

  Miranda Wang is developing unique technologies to turn plastic waste into valuable chemicals. Discover how her company is pioneering answers to the plastics crisis.

• Cool food in the desert - Rolex Awards

  In a semi-arid land with no refrigeration, food perishes quickly, causing major problems for local people. But Mohammed Bah Abba, who came from a family of potters, had a spectacularly simple solution.

• Ocean noise rings alarm bells - Rolex Awards

  The rising tumult in the oceans caused by human activity is causing devastating damage to sea life, according to evidence gathered by bioacoustician scientist Michel André.

• Connecting the world with signs - Rolex Awards

  Seventy million people worldwide use sign languages. They are divided by 126 different languages, each with its own vocabulary. However, there are very few dictionaries to bridge the gaps between these languages. A Japanese entrepreneur is creating an online sign-language dictionary to help deaf communities across the world converse.

• Taking a new track - Rolex Awards

  Louis Liebenberg designed the CyberTracker to enable Kalahari Bushmen to record their observations of animals, but the technology has proved a highly versatile scientific tool.

• An answer to toxic leather waste - Rolex Awards

  For 40 years, from his university laboratory in the Czech Republic, Karel Kolomaznik has been finding ways to recycle huge quantities of waste from leather production.

• March of the micro-volunteers - Rolex Awards

  By combining old-fashioned altruism and 21st-century technology, a young trailblazer from California has given the world a new model for philanthropy.

• Bicycle ride to a new life - Rolex Awards

  By recycling discarded bicycles, David Schweidenback is giving people in the developing world the means to pursue employment, commerce and education.

• Stars in their eyes - Rolex Awards

  Recognizing the magic and the science that exploring the heavens brings to school children, Gilbert Clark’s virtual observatory links hundreds of schools to the world’s most powerful telescopes.

• Walking with robots - Rolex Awards

  By marrying textile science with robotics, Conor Walsh, an Irish biomedical engineer, and a team of experts at the Harvard Biodesign Lab are revolutionizing how patients worldwide recover from traumas such as stroke and learn to walk again.

• Water drum eases burden - Rolex Awards

  The Q Drum invented by South African architect Hans Hendrikse has improved the lives of many thousands in developing countries, providing a simple, easy means to transport up to 50 litres of water at a time.

• Halting the locust plague - Rolex Awards

  Locust swarms are capable of devouring vast fields of crops within hours. Geographer Frithjof Voss used satellite image mapping to detect locusts before they could wreak their havoc.

• Light for the world - Rolex Awards

  In 1997 when Dave Irvine-Halliday saw children in Nepal trying to read in near-dark classrooms he resolved to light up remote villages using low-cost renewable energy.

• A new kind of heart tablet - Rolex Awards

  IT specialist Arthur Zang has used his technological know-how to invent and manufacture Africa’s first computer tablet to diagnose people with heart disease.

• Vision for Africa - Rolex Awards

  Most of the world’s 285 million visually impaired people live in low-income countries, often in areas where there is little access to diagnosis or treatment. British ophthalmologist Andrew Bastawrous is radically changing eye care in sub-Saharan Africa with a portable examination system based on smartphones.

• Forecasting volcanic eruptions - Rolex Awards

  Millions of people live in the shadow of active volcanoes but Scottish physicist Andrew McGonigle is using drones to develop ways to predict eruptions.

• Eyes in the ocean

  Stanford professor Barbara Block is tagging top marine predators, revealing the mysteries of their lives and their prospects for survival.

• Recycling rice husks into fuel - Rolex Awards

  Huge piles of discarded rice husks clutter many farms in Asia. Inventor Alexis Belonio has found a way to put them to practical use, at the same time as reducing pollution and saving farmers’ money in the process.

• Regreening the globe - Rolex Awards

  The unflagging efforts of Mario Robles del Moral to reforest his native Spain have gone global, with a path of forest worldwide being the ultimate ambition.

• Bewitched by bonobos - Rolex Awards

  Fascinated by bonobos since her childhood, American Jo Thompson has dedicated decades to conserving these “bewitching” creatures in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and to conducting field research and community-based conservation.

• Reduce wildlife-human conflict in India - Rolex Awards

  Conservationist Krithi Karanth is working to reduce wildlife-human conflict in India. Discover how she is increasing trust between conservationists and communities.

• When the buying stops - Rolex Awards

  Many animal conservation initiatives focus on stopping poachers and preserving habitats but British ecologist Peter Knights concentrates on persuading people not to buy products produced from endangered animals.

• Helping children to build a new world - Rolex Awards

  Through her environmental theme park, the visionary Mexican environmentalist Maritza Morales Casanova hopes to teach a generation of young people to care for the Yucatán’s fragile environment.

• Wild horses and nomads - Rolex Awards

  Przewalski horses had disappeared from the Mongolian steppes by the 1970s but Claudia Feh led one of several initiatives reintroducing them to the habitat they had ranged for centuries – and improved the lives of local nomads in the process.

• Mexico’s bat man - Rolex Awards

  Rodrigo Medellín, a Mexican conservationist is battling many kinds of threats to bats, but the greatest threat he is determined to overcome is ignorance.

• Stars of the sea - Rolex Awards

  To help protect the charismatic whale shark, the world’s biggest fish, Brad Norman created an identification system based on its celestial markings.

• Embracing the lessons of the past - Rolex Awards

  Rejecting the modern farming techniques he had studied at university, Zenón Porfidio Gomel Apaza turned to ancient agricultural traditions to transform the Andean communities of his homeland.

• Nature and nurture - Rolex Awards

  Andrew Muir, a South African conservationist is using the natural world to support young people orphaned by AIDS improve their lives, helping them to find jobs and develop life skills.

• A symphony of sustainability - Rolex Awards

  For Martha Ruiz Corzo, conservation and economic development for the poor go hand in hand, an ethos she made real in the mountains of central Mexico.

• Holding back the Sahara - Rolex Awards

  Sarah Toumi has returned to Tunisia, her father’s homeland, and is determined to restore the land, which is suffering from desertification, and reduce poverty by introducing sustainable farming practices.

• Living with leopards - Rolex Awards

  Shafqat Hussain has offered farmers in the remote reaches of northern Pakistan an alternative to killing the snow leopards preying on their herds, proving humans and big cats can coexist.

• Our lady of the camels - Rolex Awards

  German veterinary surgeon Ilse Köhler-Rollefson works with camel herders in India’s remote Thar Desert and champions traditional pastoralist communities worldwide.

• Defending the snow leopard - Rolex Awards

  In remote west Nepal, wildlife biologist Rodney Jackson mounted a complex programme to track the highly elusive snow leopard and united various groups worldwide in efforts to protect the endangered cat.

• Saving a forest to protect a bird - Rolex Awards

  Swiss biologist Anita Studer’s ambitious project to restore part of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest has resulted in more than 6 million trees being planted – many by local people – thus creating a multiplier effect across the country.

• The call of the wild - Rolex Awards

  After rescuing his first injured hedgehog in the 1970s, English accountant Les Stocker, transformed his veterinary hobby into a world famous wildlife teaching hospital.

• Agents of change - Rolex Awards

  Christine Keung, who immigrated to the United States when she was four, is intent on using her education as a force for good – by tackling rural pollution in Northwest China.

• Upcycling reshapes lives - Rolex Awards

  Artisans living in Manila’s largest and poorest urban communities used to earn a pittance making rugs from scraps of material. Reese Fernandez-Ruiz set them to work using upcycled and overstock fabric to create high-end fashion accessories – and earn a decent living in the process.

• Icon of the Andes - Rolex Awards

  Argentine biologist Norberto Luis Jácome has brought back from near-extinction the Andean condor, a majestic symbol of South America’s birdlife.

• Saving Rwanda’s bird of fortune - Rolex Awards

  Rwanda’s turbulent history has meant wildlife conservation has not always been able to be a priority, but the situation has improved over recent years. Olivier Nsengimana has been part of this change with an emblematic bird as his flagship species.

• Great mother of the hornbills - Rolex Awards

  Hornbills are perhaps the most regal birds found in Asia and Africa’s tropical forests, where they play a vital role by spreading seeds. A Thai microbiologist is popularly known as the “Great Mother of Hornbills” for her ingenious strategies to save them and their habitats.

• Preserving Paraguay’s forgotten corner - Rolex Awards

  Biologist Karina Atkinson has spent more than six years helping to transform a little-known reserve in Paraguay into a model of scientific conservation and sustainable tourism that benefits the local community.

• Two million trees - Rolex Awards

  The vision of award-winning botanist Sebastian Chuwa rallied the people of northern Tanzania to create a sustainable future through a massive reforestation project.

• Race to rescue the Siberian tiger - Rolex Awards

  The Siberian tiger, the world’s biggest cat, once roamed Asia’s forests in the thousands. Sergei Bereznuk is battling poachers and habitat destruction to save this endangered animal from extinction.

• Conservation begins in the classroom - Rolex Awards

  Suryo Prawiroatmodjo’s tireless efforts to make environmental education the cornerstone of conservation efforts took root at home and quickly spread throughout Indonesia and beyond.

• Citizen scientist - Rolex Awards

  The inventions of self-taught scientist Forrest Mims have allowed amateurs and specialists across the world to measure the ozone layer that protects life on our planet.

• Saving the world’s threatened penguins - Rolex Awards

  Pablo García Borboroglu is researching the world's penguins to guide their conservation. Discover his plans to engage local communities to save these ocean birds.

• Gentle giant of the ocean

  Kerstin Forsberg is protecting threatened giant manta rays by working with local communities to promote awareness and appreciation of these gentle giants and to assist fishermen find alternative income through ecotourism.

• A force of nature - Rolex Awards

  For nearly 30 years, Maria Eliza Manteca Oñate has worked tirelessly to reverse environmental damage in the Ecuadorian Andes, persuading farmers it is possible to live off the land without damaging the soil.

• Return flight - Rolex Awards

  Hunters and fishermen almost eradicated Atlantic puffins from Maine's offshore islands in the 19th century but Stephen Kress's innovative techniques have brought them back.

• Recreating the emerald green forest - Rolex Awards

  The long, slow retreat of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest has been reversed thanks to Laury Cullen Jr. who is protecting its unique wildlife and engaging local farmers in conservation.

• Clean vision for India - Rolex Awards

  Quitting a promising career at Google to follow a dream of rejuvenating the environment around him, Indian conservationist Arun Krishnamurthy has inspired communities to restore their polluted urban lakes.

• Marching for Russia’s parks - Rolex Awards

  Mass marches are saving the national parks of Russia, and changing perceptions of nature conservation, thanks to the determined efforts of Irina Chebakova.

• Ice towers in the desert - Rolex Awards

  Sonam Wangchuk is helping farmers in the arid Himalayan highlands of Ladakh to overcome water shortages by tapping meltwaters to build artificial glaciers.

• Reef rescue with the toughest corals

  Marine biologist Emma Camp is out to find the world’s toughest corals. Discover how she plans to rescue reefs in the face of climate change and human activity.

• Africa’s turtle saviour - Rolex Awards

  A visionary naturalist, Tomas Diagne observed that the African spurred tortoise, which can live for more than 150 years, was becoming rare and decided to save it.

• Shooting wildlife with a camera - Rolex Awards

  With India’s wilderness suffering in the face of explosive economic growth, Shekar Dattatri continues to focus his attention on the urgent need to conserve his country’s remaining natural heritage. His subjects range from the tiger to disappearing coastlines.

• Thailand’s shy sea cows - Rolex Awards

  To prevent dugongs disappearing from Thailand’s coastal waters, biologist Pisit Charnsnoh has engaged local people to protect the shy sea mammal and revive the coastal ecosystem so crucial to their own economic survival.

• Repairing the past - Rolex Awards

  In the mid-20th century, vultures faced extinction in Europe’s mountainous regions, their natural habitat for two million years. Michel Terrasse has spent much of his life working to reverse the birds’ destiny.

• The life-saving mangroves of Manzanar - Rolex Awards

  Gordon Sato’s radical method of using seawater for irrigation has helped the poor villages of coastal Eritrea develop a self-sufficient economy.

• An Amazonian legacy - Rolex Awards

  The late José Márcio Ayres devoted his life to the challenge of combining protection of the Amazon forests with improving the living conditions of its indigenous people.

• Barometers for Africa’s health - Rolex Awards

  Distressed to see the regal wattled crane disappearing in South Africa, zoologist Lindy Rodwell van Hasselt expanded her conservation network to save the bird’s wetland habitats.

• Guardian of South America’s Gran Chaco - Rolex Awards

  The Gran Chaco is one of South America’s last truly wild environments but its ecosystem is deteriorating. Conservation biologist Erika Cuéllar has been training local people to protect its extraordinary biodiversity.

• Farming the natural way - Rolex Awards

  Gorur Gopinath developed eco-friendly methods of silkworm rearing in India, working with the environment rather than destroying it, and improving local living standards in the process.

• Promote local initiatives for biodiversity conservation in Nepal’s Trans-Himalaya - Video

  Local people from one of the world’s wildest and most isolated places, the mountainous Himalaya region of Humla in Nepal, are being enlisted as frontline conservators to rescue dwindling wild animal populations – from snow leopards to wild yaks. Driving the scheme is an energetic young ecologist, Rinzin Phunjok Lama, who is convinced that only local commitment and know-how can make the real difference.

• Explore and protect the Indian Ocean’s deep coral reefs - Video

  A hundred metres or more beneath the ocean surface in the Maldives lies a twilight zone whose wondrous corals and strange life remain unexplored. In a pioneering diving expeditions, a leading expert in the study of fish, Luiz Rocha, plans to survey these deep reefs to find and describe new species and make the case for their protection.

• Guardians of the future - Video

  Discover the five Laureates of the 2021 Rolex Awards for Enterprise. Their visionary projects, ranging from a world-first expedition to seek clues about climate change in the planet’s northernmost caves, to tackling malnutrition by fortifying food in Tanzania, exemplify Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative.

• Saving the sacred condor - Video

  Fascinated from an early age with his country’s mountains and the condors that fly above them, Argentine biologist Luis Jácome, a 1996 Rolex Award for Enterprise Laureate, understood the ecological role of these majestic and sacred birds – and their vulnerability to extinction.

• Exploring submarine forests in Patagonia’s fjords

  Discovering new species, never described to science, is just one aspect of the case the intrepid marine biologist Vreni Häussermann puts for the protection of the wild waters of the Patagonian fjords.

• Listening to the Earth

  Since designing an underwater system to prevent ships from colliding with whales, bioacoustics pioneer Michel André has expanded his project to create a network of microphones that monitor the planet's myriad sounds and warn of threats to nature.

• The Rolex Awards - The next chapter

  The Rolex Awards identify and invest in exceptional people around the world who are carrying out pioneering projects. Find out more about the Awards now.

• The Biologist Championing Bats - Video

  With a long-standing love of bats, 2008 Rolex Awards for Enterprise Laureate Rodrigo Medellín has spent the past 40 years protecting these universally feared mammals that he recognizes for their crucial role in pest control, seed dispersal and plant pollination.

• Reviving India’s blighted lakes - Video

  Determined from an early age to revive and protect the waterbodies near his home in Chennai, 2012 Rolex Awards for Enterprise Laureate Arun Krishnamurthy gave up a promising career at Google to devote his life to rejuvenating the lakes in his native India and beyond.

• Saving lives on India’s roads - Video

  Motivated by the unnecessary death of his cousin in a road accident where bystanders typically ignored the victim’s plight, successful Indian businessman and 2010 Rolex Awards for Enterprise Laureate Piyush Tewari gave up his career to concentrate on helping to save the lives of his compatriots on the country’s chaotic roads.

• How a bird saved a forest - Video

  Anita Studer, a Swiss ornithologist who went to Brazil to study its rich array of bird life, has, through sheer determination and dedication, inspired Brazilians to save their forests and changed thousands of lives for the better in what is now her second home.

• Venturer in the underworld

  The hidden realm of caves has opened up a new world to scientists and explorers thanks to speleologists such as Francesco Sauro whose many expeditions have provided an archive of time for future generations.

• School on the taiga - Video

  In south-eastern Siberia, a nomadic people are trying to preserve their way of life against the march of modern society. For eight years Alexandra Lavrillier, a brilliant French ethnologist, has been fighting alongside them to save their heritage, setting up a nomadic school that will give Evenk children the chance to receive a modern education without having to sacrifice their ancestral traditions.

• Stitches in time - Video

  In a remote part of India, Chanda Shroff has established a movement to revive the traditional hand embroidery, creating a sustainable means of income for local women.

• The fabric of history - Video

  Cristina Bubba Zamora has spent more than a decade fighting the illegal traffic in Bolivian ceremonial weavings.

• Rewriting human prehistory - Video

  Since the bones of the earliest-known human ancestors to venture out of Africa came to light at Dmanisi, Georgia, in 1991, palaeanthropologist David Lordkipanidze has led the excavation, under challenging economic and political circumstances, of what is now regarded as one of the world’s foremost prehistoric sites.

• The sounds of Mexico’s heart - Video

  Eduardo Llerenas was a respected professor of biochemistry when he won a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 1981 for a project to preserve Mexico’s rich musical heritage. He is now the director of an independent music label and is considered by ethnomusicologists to be the world expert on Mexican traditional music.

• Treasures in the desert - Video

  In the middle of the Kara Kum desert in the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan lies Merv, three ancient cities full of archaeological treasures and knowledge of the past. Dr Georgina Herrmann, a 1996 Rolex Award Laureate, is one of the driving forces behind the international effort to unearth and understand the secrets of the area.

• Science at the service of art - Video

  Over the past 40 years, John Asmus’ life has taken many unexpected turns. Initially involved in nuclear propulsion in space, Asmus moved on to become one of the world’s foremost high-tech art conservators whose work has embraced such diverse artistic treasures as the Mona Lisa and China’s ancient terracotta army.

• A village devoted to silk - Video

  Moved by the failure of Cambodia’s countryside to recover from decades of war, silk expert Kikuo Morimoto left his job in Thailand in the 1990s to set up silk-fabrication workshops in the hinterlands of Cambodia. His goal was to help impoverished villagers resurrect traditional silk production.

• World’s oldest art gallery - Video

  For close to half a century, Luc Debecker, a Belgian-born industrial surveyor living in Switzerland and France, has been spending most of his weekends and holidays compiling a guide to the world’s oldest "art gallery" — the caves where Stone Age peoples living in Europe 40,000 years ago painted the animals of their time with astonishing realism and skill.

• The lessons of Maya art? - Video

  In 1975, a young Belgian archaeologist and art historian, Martine Fettweis-Viénot, began a single-handed study of the colourful Maya murals of Mexico and Guatemala. Her painstaking copying of the paintings, which is to result eventually in a published catalogue, led her to new theories about the murals and their role in Maya society.

• A living museum - Video

  Runa Khan has watched as traditional boats that used to ply Bangladesh’s waterways have been replaced by those with diesel engines. Determined to preserve traditional boat-building skills, she is now achieving her long-held dream of constructing a museum.

• Telling ancient tales - Video

  Italian social entrepreneur Selene Biffi has set up a storytelling school in Kabul that will preserve Afghanistan’s rich oral heritage and spread crucial development information.

• Conserving the ancient beauty of Petra - Video

  Chemistry professor Talal Akasheh, who has devoted 26 years to documenting Petra scientifically, is set to complete a knowledge system that will underpin the city’s future conservation.

• Footprints to the past - Video

  Argentinian palaeontologist and geologist Teresa Manera de Bianco is struggling to save a unique collection of animal footprints made 12,000 years ago. The three-kilometre-long site is now part of the Atlantic coastline near Teresa’s home, but 12,000 years ago it was an inland pond teeming with birds and mammals.

• Recycling unrecyclable plastic waste - Video

  If 25 year-old Canadian entrepreneur Miranda Wang fulfils her goal, a third of the world’s plastic waste – which now chokes landfills, rivers and oceans – could be converted into new wealth.

• Africa’s ‘Father of Turtles’ - Video

  Conservationist Tomas Diagne received a 1998 Rolex Award for Enterprise for creating Senegal’s Village des Tortues (Tortoise Village), which is both a haven where turtles, tortoises and terrapins are bred for release into the wild, and a place of learning about the conservation of species on the brink of extinction.

• The “ice stupas” that could water the Himalaya - Environment

  Artificial glaciers are being used to grow crops in the harsh desert.

• Saving the snow leopard

  In Pakistan’s mountains, Shafqat Hussain is helping farmers maintain their livelihoods while learning to coexist with the big cats who prey on their herds.

• A vanishing forest reborn

  Working with dedicated farming families, Laury Cullen Jr. is restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest while contributing to the local economy and helping to fight climate change.

• Taking a volcano’s pulse

  Eight hundred million people live in the shadow of fiery death, within striking range of one of Earth’s 500 historically active volcanoes. For Scottish volcanologist Andrew McGonigle, providing timely warning of an impending eruption is a goal that is both humanitarian and scientific.

• The call of the cloud forest - Video

  Restoring the dwindling biodiversity of the unique montane cloud forests of Sri Lanka through the Agrapatana Montane Forest Restoration Initiative earned conservationist Rohan Pethiyagoda a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2000.

• Rwanda’s uplifting regal bird - Video

  Encouraged by his 2014 Rolex Award for Enterprise, Olivier Nsengimana has galvanized his fellow Rwandans to revive the fortunes of their much-loved grey crowned crane.

• Eye test brings equality - Video

  Ophthalmologist Andrew Bastawrous is pursuing a vision to bring clear eyesight to millions of people around the world. Discover the video on rolex.org.

• Taking a volcano’s pulse - Video

  Eight hundred million people live in the shadow of fiery death, within striking range of one of Earth’s 500 historically active volcanoes. For Scottish volcanologist Andrew McGonigle, providing timely warning of an impending eruption is a goal that is both humanitarian and scientific.

• A vanishing forest reborn - Video

  Working with dedicated farming families, Laury Cullen Jr. is restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest while contributing to the local economy and helping to fight climate change.

• Stars of the deep - Video

  Little was known about the endangered whale shark, the world’s biggest fish, until Australian marine scientist Brad Norman found a way to identify and monitor individual animals drawing on an algorithm developed by NASA scientists.

• Saving the snow leopard - Video

  In Pakistan’s mountains, Shafqat Hussain is helping farmers maintain their livelihoods while learning to coexist with the big cats who prey on their herds.

• Medical alerts from a sticker on your hand - Video

  Biomedical engineer and 2012 Rolex Laureate Mark Kendall is on a mission to revolutionize modern medicine.

• Listening to the Earth - Video

  Scientist Michel André’s concern for marine life led to the development of an underwater network of microphones. Discover the video on rolex.org.

• Exploring submarine forests in Patagonia’s fjords - Video

  Discovering new species, never described to science, is just one aspect of the case the intrepid marine biologist Vreni Häussermann puts for the protection of the wild waters of the Patagonian fjords.

• Forecasting volcanic eruptions - Video

  Scottish physicist Andrew McGonigle is developing a reliable way to predict eruptions, using an unmanned, small-scale helicopter to measure gases that escape from volcanic vents. His combination of science and advanced technology has the potential to save thousands of lives.

• Darkening hues of Greenland - Video

  For British glacial microbiologist Joseph Cook, the blooming of a rainforest of microscopic life in the rapidly warming Arctic holds not only mystery and beauty – but also menace. The colours reflect both the unanticipated changes wrought by human activity on the planet and the hazards of accelerating sea level rise, drowning the world’s coastal cities.

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• Perpetual Planet: People Making a Difference - Video

  Perpetual Planet: People Making a Difference

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• Bicycle ride to a new life? - Video

  By giving new life to used bicycles, David Schweidenback, who won a Rolex Award in 2000, is improving the lives of people in many developing countries. Pedals for Progress, the organisation he founded in 1991, has collected and exported more than 159,000 bikes – and has extended its activities to sewing-machines and new spare parts.

• Women doctors for telemedicine in Pakistan - Video

  Women doctors for telemedicine in Pakistan

• Reef rescue with the toughest corals - Video

  Reef rescue with the toughest corals

• A vaccine revolution - Video

  Professor Mark Kendall is working on the development of the needle-free ‘Nanopatch’, to revolutionize delivery of vaccines in the developing world making them cheaper and potentially saving the lives of the millions of people who die from infectious diseases.

• Safe lamps save lives - Video

  For more than a decade, a resolute surgeon in Sri Lanka has battled apathy and ignorance to save people from disfigurement and death by fire caused by home-made lamps. Wijaya Godakumbura, who won a Rolex Award in 1998, has a simple solution to this devastating problem — the Safe Bottle Lamp.

• Roadside rescue - Video

  Piyush Tewari is determined to save thousands of lives by ensuring that most accident victims in Delhi receive rapid medical care. His foundation, in partnership with hospitals and a medical science institute, has already provided training sessions in basic life support to over 2,000 police officers, as well as 500 ordinary citizens.

• From taxis to beetles - Video

  Pierre Morvan, a self-taught expert on insects, has made his mark in science by exploring insect populations in a region often out of bounds to professional scientists – the isolated and inaccessible regions of the Himalayas..

• Promoting propagation - Video

  Billy Lee Lasley’s invention of a non-invasive method for determining the sex of birds — designed to help protect endangered species such as eagles — has slowly been adopted by researchers around the world. Perhaps more importantly, his work has proved to have other uses, including monitoring the reproductive health of women exposed to chemicals in the environment.

• A mobile lifeline for mothers - Video

  Aggrey Otieno will build a telemedicine centre with a 24-hour, on-call doctor and van in a Nairobi slum, thereby helping to save the lives of mothers and babies who lack access to emergency obstetric care.

• Rapid malaria testing with no blood sample - Video

  Rapid malaria testing with no blood sample

• Vital role for ancient medicine - Video

  Tibetan medicine has been practised for more than 1,000 years in Ladakh, in India’s far north. The very survival of this complex system of healing, ritual and belief — known as Amchi medicine — was threatened by the 20th century’s huge social changes. But over the past six years French anthropologist and ethno-pharmacologist Laurent Pordié has led a campaign that will help ensure Ladakhis continue to benefit from Amchi medicine for generations to come.

• The hand puppet that saves lives - Video

  Bruktawit Tigabu will produce new episodes of Tsehai Loves Learning to teach preschool children and their parents basic health education. The programme uses songs, stories and simple graphics to make health concepts easy to grasp.

• Help paralysed people walk again - Video

  Help paralysed people walk again

• Waging war on superbugs - Video

  Superbugs, resistant to antibiotics, are a threat to humanity. Saudi Arabian microbiologist Hosam Zowawi is combating the misuse of antibiotics by developing groundbreaking diagnostic tests and an awareness campaign in the Gulf states.

• Ship of hope - Video

  After years of preparation, engineer-turned-sailor Jacques Luc Autran set sail in 1987 on the Listaos, a rebuilt trawler, for the Indian Ocean and the isolated archipelagos that dot this area. Supported by the association Seamen without Borders, which he created, Jacques embarked on a series of journeys that would fulfil a long-held dream: to bring medical relief, technical assistance and food to communities cut off from civilization by the sea.

• Doctor to the world - Video

  Physician Aldo Lo Curto has worked as a doctor in almost 40 countries in the past 20 years, putting himself at the service of humanity. This "volunteer travelling doctor" and 1993 Rolex Laureate spends half the year in his medical practice in Canzo, in northern Italy, and the rest of his time healing, teaching and living among indigenous people on several continents.

• After the Ice Maiden - Video

  Johan Reinhard’s 1995 discovery of the 500-year-old Inca “Ice Maiden” could easily have been the apex of his life. One of the best-preserved bodies from pre-Columbian times thrilled millions worldwide, unleashing a wealth of knowledge. Yet the high-altitude cultural anthropologist and archaeologist was not satisfied with this achievement. He was convinced that better-preserved mummies were yet to be found on remote Andean mountain-tops.

• Inside the labyrinth - Video

  South America’s table-top mountains conceal caves never visited by humans. Italian scientist and explorer Francesco Sauro is taking on the daunting challenge of exploring these caves in a quest for clues to the evolution of life and the planet.

• Riding high in the rainforest - Video

  Biologist-turned-entrepreneur Donald Perry has made it possible for tourists, students and scientists alike to explore the wonderland that flourishes on the equivalent of the "15th floor" of the tropical rainforest.

• The frozen rainforest - Video

  Glacial microbiologist Joseph Cook likens the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet to a “frozen rainforest”. The top few metres of ice are a biological realm whose dimensions, role and impacts are still a scientific mystery. Cook’s Ice Alive mission aims to reveal how this ecosystem helps drive changes in the Earth’s climate, nutrient and carbon cycles, which in turn affect humanity.

• A giant task - Video

  The Canadian-American palaeontologist, Elizabeth Nicholls, overcame numerous obstacles to extract the fossilised remains of a 220-million-year-old, giant marine reptile in a remote region of Canada.

• A passion for the Arctic - Video

  For Arctic explorer and 2004 Rolex Laureate, Lonnie Dupre, global warming is not just a theory – it is a visible and immediate threat to the region that he loves passionately. In May 2005, he set out with co-explorer and friend Eric Larsen on an ambitious expedition to heighten global awareness of this menace.

• Patagonia’s wild depths - Video

  Vreni Häusserman is a German biologist who is exploring the unique marine life of the Patagonian fjords in the south of Chile. These extraordinary and delicate underwater environments are suffering from the effects of intensive fish farming and global warming. Vreni is planning ever-deeper dives to study, understand and preserve this unique biodiversity before it is too late.

• The isle is full of wonder - Video

  In 2000, the world-renowned French speleologist Jean-François Pernette led a multidisciplinary expedition to Chile’s Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope) province — where he made some unexpected and breathtaking discoveries.

• Explore remote volcanoes affecting earth’s climate - Video

  Explore remote volcanoes affecting earth’s climate

• Mosaic of underground beauty - Video

  Through a series of expeditions to study the speleological, hydrological and archaeological aspects of the Rio La Venta Canyon, Antonio De Vivo and a multidisciplinary team of cavers and researchers have begun to unravel the secrets buried in this isolated region and gather proof that the canyon was an important route of communication and commerce for a highly developed pre-Columbian civilization.

• Holding back the Sahara - Video

  Lower rainfall and severe droughts are threatening to turn three-quarters of Tunisia’s agricultural lands into desert. Sarah Toumi is holding back the Sahara by planting Acacia trees, which revitalize the land, preventing further erosion and salinization. She is also working to reduce rural poverty by introducing sustainable farming practices, encouraging farmers to plant crops more suited to the changing climate than olives and almonds.

• Upcycling reshapes lives - Video

  In 2007, Reese Fernandez cofounded Rags2Riches, a social enterprise company that revolutionized the women’s business practices by arranging for them to sell their products direct to retailers.

• Race to rescue the Siberian tiger - Video

  For the past 17 years, Sergei Bereznuk, a staunch Russian conservationist and ecologist, has been working valiantly to save the Amur tiger. Based on his experience since 1995 with a tiger anti-poaching brigade in the Russian Far East province Primorsky Krai, Bereznuk is convinced that saving the Amur tiger depends on both the efficiency of anti-poaching measures and the education of the local people.

• Ice towers in the desert - Video

  Sonam Wangchuk lives and works in the Ladakh region of India, high in the Himalayas. This harsh mountain area is experiencing acute water shortages due to climate change. Sonam, who is an engineer and educator, found a simple but ingenious way to store water using artificial glaciers that will irrigate trees and crops.

• Return flight - Video

  Hunters and fishermen almost eradicated Atlantic puffins from Maine’s offshore islands in the 19th century. The innovative techniques that 1987 Rolex Laureate Stephen W. Kress used to bring them back have inspired major changes in seabird conservation.

• Conservation begins in the classroom - Video

  Conservationist Suryo Prawiroatmodjo has long believed that in order to protect our natural environment, people’s attitudes towards it must be radically changed. He has brought about profound changes to attitudes in and beyond his native Indonesia.

• Saving the world’s threatened penguins - Video

  Saving the world’s threatened penguins

• Great mother of the hornbills - Video

  After rediscovering a species of hornbill thought to be extinct in Thailand’s ravaged rainforests, microbiologist Pilai Poonswad set about turning former poachers and illegal loggers into protectors of these glorious birds and their precarious habitat.

• Defending the snow leopard - Video

  Wildlife biologist Rodney Jackson has mounted a complex programme of radio-tracking one of the rarest, most elusive and endangered creatures in the world — the Himalayan snow leopard. Jackson, now acknowledged as a world authority on snow leopards, has succeeded in bringing together various groups to work on their international protection.

• Helping children to build a new world - Video

  Through her environmental education park, young visionary Maritza Morales Casanova hopes to inspire a generation of young people to care for the Yucatán’s fragile environment.

• The call of the wild - Video

  Englishman Les Stocker won a Rolex Award in 1990 to establish Europe’s first wildlife teaching hospital. The hospital was soon set up and continues to expand, but along the way Stocker has achieved much more, becoming a highly respected expert on first aid and rehabilitation for sick and injured wild animals.

• Gentle giant of the ocean - Video

  Kerstin Forsberg is a biologist from Peru, who is working to save one of the most majestic creatures in the sea – the giant manta ray. These unique fish, which are caught for their gills and meat, are at high risk of extinction. She is working to give local fisherman new livelihoods and to raise awareness of all vulnerable marine species.

• An Amazonian legacy - Video

  Brazilian environmentalist José Márcio Ayres, who died in March 2003, devoted his life to the challenge of combining protection of the Amazon forest with improving the living conditions of its native people.

• Saving Rwanda’s bird of fortune - Video

  Rwanda’s iconic grey crowned-crane is disappearing because of poaching and loss of habitat. Olivier Nsengimana is liberating cranes from gardens, while inspiring a new generation of conservationists to value his country’s extraordinary wildlife.Discover more about Rolex Awards Young Laureate Olivier Nsengimana

• A force of nature - Video

  Determined to protect the remnants of indigenous forests, while at the same time improving living standards for rural people, Maria Eliza Manteca Oñate has established a nature reserve near her home village in the north of Ecuador. She has also launched a successful education programme, whereby adults and children learn sustainable farming techniques at a model farm.

• Preserving Paraguay’s forgotten corner - Video

  Scottish biologist Karina Atkinson is fostering research and responsible tourism to save a Paraguayan reserve.

• Barometers for Africa’s health - Video

  Lindy Rodwell has devoted the past 11 years to preserving the cranes of Africa, whose magical presence is woven into her childhood memories and the cultural fabric of her native South Africa.

• Reduce wildlife-human conflict in India - Video

  Reduce wildlife-human conflict in India

• Protect a giant fish for the Amazon - Video

  The largest scaled freshwater fish in the world – the giant arapaima – is bound for extinction. But in a close partnership with local associations and fishing leaders, fisheries ecologist João Campos-Silva has a plan to save not only the arapaima but with it, the livelihoods, food supply and culture of the indigenous communities who depend on the Amazon’s rivers for survival.

• Repairing the past - Video

  The last griffon vulture disappeared from the Cévennes in the south of France 60 years ago. Its cousin, the European black vulture, had deserted France a century earlier. Keen to undo the past, 1984 Rolex Award Laureate Michel Terrasse has been working for 35 years to return these magnificent birds of prey to their natural habitat.

• Agents of change - Video

  American Christine Keung is using her college education as a force for good by tackling rural pollution in northwest China, where her father was sent during the Cultural Revolution. Her ambition is to help authorities find long-term solutions to hazardous waste, and women – who bear the disproportionate cost of environmental degradation as men migrate to cities for work – are the key to her project.

• Citizen scientist - Video

  Forrest Mims III calls himself a "citizen scientist" – he has a degree in government, but no formal scientific qualifications. Yet he possesses a rare breadth of scientific and technical expertise in an age of narrow professionalism. One of his greatest achievements has been to set up a network to monitor ultraviolet radiation and ozone levels, using a hand-held device he invented himself..

• Wild horses and nomads - Video

  Claudia Feh, who has spent more than 30 years observing free-living horses, has established herself as world expert on their behaviour. For the past decade Claudia, originally from Switzerland, has been raising the world’s only natural herd of Przewalski horses, in France.

• Clean vision for India - Video

  Arun Krishnamurthy is determined to restore India’s neglected urban lakes, rallying communities to help him remove rubbish and recreate wildlife habitats.

• Nature and nurture - Video

  South African conservationist Andrew Muir is harnessing the healing powers of nature to help young people orphaned by HIV/AIDS become independent citizens. Andrew’s Umzi Wethu programme provides vulnerable but motivated youths with vocational training and jobs in the burgeoning ecotourism industry, while immersing them in their country’s rich natural heritage.

• Stars of the sea - Video

  Impelled by a love of the sea and its largest fish, the elusive whale shark, marine conservationist Brad Norman has created a photo-identification system to assist its conservation.

• The life-saving mangroves of Manzanar - Video

  Driven by a long-standing desire for justice, American biologist Gordon Sato is spending his retirement helping some of the world’s poorest people, in Eritrea, to help themselves. His innovative Manzanar project harnesses two of the Eritrean coast’s most abundant resources — intense sunlight and seawater — to grow mangrove plants that can be used not only to feed animals, but also to provide a habitat for fish and shellfish.

• Saving a forest to protect a bird - Video

  On 1 June 2002, 3,000 people paraded through the Brazilian village of Quebrangulo and then set about planting tree saplings. For Anita Studer, from Switzerland, the event was the culmination of 13 years of work, for one of the trees planted on 1 June was the millionth sapling in her plan to reforest the region.

• Guardian of South America’s Gran Chaco - Video

  rika Cuéllar is training local people in Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina as parabiologists with the aim of protecting the extraordinary biodiversity of one of South America’s last truly wild environments, the Gran Chaco.

• Race to save the seahorse - Video

  Canadian Amanda Vincent is the world’s principal authority on one of the ocean’s most enchanting inhabitants — the seahorse. From her initial fascination with this exotic animal and its highly unusual breeding cycle, Amanda has become a key figure in global action to save the wider marine environment.

• Camel milk, anyone? - Video

  When Nancy Abeiderrahmane opened Africa’s first camel milk dairy in Nouakchott in 1989, most Mauritanians wouldn’t think of buying — let alone drinking — processed milk from local livestock. Today, their attitudes are completely changed. Nancy, whose tenacity, drive and acumen are rarely matched, is behind this amazing transformation, and her work has made an important contribution to improving the quality of life in Mauritania.

• Software that cuts food waste - Video

  Oscar Ekponimo, of Nigeria, is solving an old problem – malnutrition caused by poverty – with a 21st century invention. His cloud-based app, Chowberry, alerts retailers when products reach the end of shelf life. Discounted food can then be offered to relief agencies, cutting waste. Ekponimo, who suffered from hunger as a child, developed his app to help the millions of Nigerians who do not get enough to eat.

• Unlocking secret behaviours - Video

  English zoologist Rory Wilson is renowned for developing ingenious ways to track wild animals and record their behaviour without directly observing them. His latest invention, a lightweight electronic logger, can go where satellite-based tracking devices cannot, to observe free-living animals.

• Technology for all - Video

  Sumit Dagar is developing a Braille smartphone that will help India’s millions of blind people access the digital world.

• Electronic ears to listen to the rainforests - Video

  Technologist Topher White is giving scientists and conservationists a unique view of wildlife in the world’s rainforests – through an alert system he originally developed to detect illegal logging using old mobile phones.

• Sounds cool - Video

  Steven Garrett, a 1993 Rolex Award Laureate, has been developing sound-powered refrigeration equipment for over a decade with the ultimate hope that this environmentally friendly technology will find its way from his laboratory to everyone’s homes.

• Farming by radio - Video

  Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu wants to build on the achievements of his Smallholders Foundation which is already broadcasting 10 hours daily to 250,000 listeners on Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio. His goal is to establish a communications network reaching 3.5 million farmers in almost 5,000 villages in his own region, Imo State, in south-east Nigeria.

• Grain of hope - Video

  Fonio, a grain famous in West Africa, is often referred to as "Africa’s tastiest cereal". Rich in fibre, fonio is healthy as well as delicious. But for centuries, fonio has had a major drawback — up to two hours of manual pounding and winnowing is needed to remove the husks from two kilos of grain before it can be cooked and served.

• March of the micro-volunteers - Video

  Tapping into the latest trends in information and telecommunications technology, Jacob Colker has combined volunteering, the internet and mobile phones to pioneer a new form of activism in which almost anyone with a smartphone can devote spare minutes — waiting for the bus or to see the doctor — to a useful charitable or scientific task.

• Connecting the world with signs - Video

  The world’s 70 million hearing-impaired people use 126 different languages, each with its own grammar and vocabulary. However, there are very few dictionaries to bridge the gaps between these languages. A Japanese entrepreneur, Junto Ohki, has created SLinto, an online sign-language dictionary that crowdsources signs –which are input with a special keyboard – to help deaf communities across the world converse.

• Ocean noise rings alarm bells - Video

  Michel André a 2002 Rolex Awards Laureate, has just completed successful first-stage trials of the first-ever whale anti-collision system. But, he says, his research raises a greater issue &ndash; the pollution of the world&rsquo;s oceans with human noise.

• Taking a new track - Video

  CyberTracker, the brainchild of 1998 Laureate Louis Liebenberg, is a handheld device originally developed to modernize the ancient skill of tracking. While it has proven highly successful for its original purpose, Louis has discovered that its software has revolutionary potential to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change; CyberTracker technology can monitor, predict and help prevent irreversible damage to our ecosystems.

• Walking with robots - Video

  An Irish biomedical engineer based at Harvard, Conor Walsh is addressing the acute challenges faced by stroke victims as they learn to walk again. He is developing a soft robotic suit that can be worn under clothes and that trains muscles, limbs and joints to function again. This exciting new technology should revolutionize treatment for the millions of people who suffer from physical disabilities.

• Cool food in the desert - Video

  Nigerian teacher Mohammed Bah Abba was motivated by his concern for the rural poor and by his interest in indigenous African technology to seek a practical, local solution to these problems. His extremely simple and inexpensive earthenware "pot-in-pot" cooling device, based on a principle of physics already known in ancient Egypt, has revolutionized lives in this semi-desert area.

• Light for the world - Video

  Electrical engineer Dave Irvine-Halliday realised that a single 0.1 watt, white-light emitting diode supplies enough light for a child to read by. The simple but revolutionary technology supplied to homes by his Light Up The World Foundation can light an entire rural village with less energy than that used by a single, conventional, 100 watt light bulb.

• Stars in their eyes - Video

  Twelve years ago, retired sailor Gilbert Clark started giving children a healthy dose of virtual reality by letting them look at the Milky Way and beyond through mammoth, multimillion-dollar telescopes from their computers.

• Vision for Africa - Video

  Andrew Bastawrous is an ophthalmologist from England whose dream is to treat the millions of visually impaired people living in low-income countries. He has begun a project in remote areas of Kenya, where there is little eye care but good mobile phone technology. His solution is to use smartphones as a portable eye examination kit, and eventually make this technology available around the world.

• A new kind of heart tablet - Video

  Arthur Zang is revolutionizing cardiac care in Cameroon, where heart disease is rising. His invention – a tablet-computer heart monitor called a Cardio Pad – needs only mobile phone network coverage to diagnose heart disease anywhere, any time.

• Eyes in the ocean - Video

  Barbara Block’s aim is to build the technology that will engage the public on the plight of marine predators that roam along the west coast of North America – a crucial prelude to their conservation.