Future Forward

The laureates of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise 2021 are hoping to change the world, one project at a time

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim has an ambitious goal: the climate change activist and indigenous rights advocate wants to resolve the escalated tensions between the nomadic pastoralists and settled farmers in her native Chad. The two groups have been warring over dwindling resources, which is the result of climate change and growing population in the Sahel region in Central Africa. It might seem like a lofty ambition, but as a laureate of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise (RAE) 2021, she has the support she needs to make the change.

Growing up in Chad’s pastoralist Mbororo community, the 37-year-old experienced first-hand the effects of climate change with her country’s largest lake. “When my mother was born, Lake Chad used to have 25,000 sqkm of water, and when I was born over 30 years ago, it was 10,000 sqkm,” says Hindou. “[It has since shrunk] to about 1,200 sqkm.”

Conducted with volunteers, including herders, her project will utilise the knowledge of the indigenous people to create two-dimensional mapping of natural features onto a board. For her inaugural project, she convinced 500 indigenous herders in the district of Baïbokoum

to participate. The men documented the ridges and plateaus, rivers and sacred places, and the women mapped the springs.

The intricate 2D landscape map models will serve as a foundation for the conversations between the two warring factions. They will allow the two sides to distribute and share the land equitably, while ensuring access to fresh water. This model will also educate the herds on the best way to conserve natural resources. In fact, Hindou’s project in Baïbokoum was such a success that the national government adopted the learnings from the experiment in public policymaking.

“We all depend on nature, we depend on the environment. We interact with the environment. I can’t protect human rights without protecting the environment,” says the RAE laureate, who is also an advocate of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Through RAE’S support, her mapping project can be scaled up in Chad and even neighbouring countries. It will not only be a great effort in the conservation of resources but become a galvanising force to unite the indigenous people and lower the occurrence of tensions between communities.

Together with Hindou, four other individuals— American social entrepreneur Felix Brooks-church, Brazilian marine biologist Luiz Rocha, British climate researcher Gina Moseley and Nepalese scientist and environmentalist Rinzin Phunjok Lama—are the recipients of RAE 2021. Originally created in 1976 as a one-time ceremony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Rolex Oyster, the world’s first waterproof wristwatch, the awards drew so much international interest that it eventually grew into an ongoing programme.

The RAE has since been established as one of the three key pillars of the watchmaker’s Perpetual Planet initiative, where it supports individuals and organisations to find solutions to the world’s problems. (The other pillars include Rolex’s partnership with the National Geographic Society, and Rolex ambassador and marine scientist Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue initiative to safeguard the oceans.) Taking place biennially, the RAE honours and supports individuals with projects focused on the environment, science and health, applied technology, cultural heritage, and exploration to better the world and improve human well-being.

“We all depend on nature, we depend on the environment. We interact with the environment. I can’t protect human rights without protecting the environment”— HINDOU OUMAROU IBRAHIM