Former Junior Master Chef finalist now a Young Champion of the Earth

MANILA, Philippines — A 20-year-old Filipina chef and entrepreneur was named one of the winners of the United Nations Environment Programme award that recognizes young people all over the world for their innovative and impactful initiatives to protect the environment.

Louise Mabulo from Camarines Sur won the Young Champions of the Earth prize for Asia and the Pacific for her initiative to boost farmers’ income through high value and climate resilient cocoa.

She told Philstar.com that being awarded the distinction will bolster her efforts “in proving that we can build sustainable livelihoods, empower communities, increase disaster resiliency while protecting our environment.”

Mabulo’s Cacao Project provides farmers of San Fernando, Camarines Sur with training and resources to build sustainable, environmental friendly and disaster-resilient livelihoods. The initiative has also led to the planting of more than 70,000 trees across 70 hectares of land and restoring the agricultural land devastated by Typhoon Nina (Nock-Ten) in 2016.

Cacao Project won an award in the 2017 Youth Assembly from the Resolution Project.

A former Junior Master Chef finalist, Mabulo also established Culinary Lounge, a by-reservation kitchen lounge that sources high-value ingredients from local farmers and encourages home-grown food.

"These ventures, particularly The Cacao Project, are part of my initiative to develop the livelihoods of our local farmers and build disaster-resilient livelihoods while combatting the existing stigmas against farming. I believe in enabling my community to use their God-given resources to not only prosper, but to preserve and safeguard our existing natural resources, while creating productive economic forests," she said. 

The UN Environment Programme awards the Young Champions of the Earth prize annually to young environmentalists between ages of 18 and 30 "for their outstanding ideas to protect the environment."

"In a day and age like ours, it’s no longer enough to have an opinion about the environment. It’s not enough to post about it on social media anymore. It’s time to be informed, it’s time to take the initiative to go out there and actively do something truly tangible for the environment and the world around," Mabulo said.

She added: "As young people, we are set to inherit this world, issues, environment, and all. We have a direct responsibility to ourselves, and to each other, to invest ourselves in tackling environmental challenges and answer the call for Climate Action, even in our own small way. Collectively, we can foster change that could mean all the difference in the global endeavours to save what is left of our environment, while there is still hope."

Winners of the award will receive $15,000 in seed funding and $9,000 in funding to communicate their ideas.