Rinzin Phunjok Lama is encouraging community involvement to save the trans-Himalayan ecosystem

The Rolex Awards for Enterprise, started almost 50 years ago, are a springboard of support for bright minds that want to change the world. They form part of the Rolex Perpetual Planet initiative that fosters scientific exploration, inquiry, invention, and outreach in the ongoing effort to make our planet perpetual.

Take a trip with us as we tell you more about the Rolex Awards for Enterprise legacy and family, and invite you to meet this year’s five Laureates who are taking the fight to protect the Earth and its inhabitants from the coral reefs of the Maldives to the caves of Greenland and beyond.

While tragedy is devastating and difficult to overcome, sometimes the green shoots of hope can spring forth from adversity. A disastrous helicopter crash in 2006 wiped out 23 Nepalese conservation heroes who had initiated important environmental work in this South Asian country made famous for its beautiful mountains and endangered wildlife. But Rinzin Phunjok Lama, an award-winning conservation biologist based in Humla, Tibet, and a Rolex Awards for Enterprise 2021 Laureate, stepped in to build on their legacy.

“The way I’m brought up, the Buddhist philosophy of compassion, coexistence, a balanced relationship between humans and nature ... those are the root inspirations to me,” he says.

Humla, Phunjok Lama’s home, is in the trans-Himalayan ecosystem, a region of the country that is 3,000-5,000m above sea level. The people here share the land with species such as the Himalayan wolf and black bear, the musk deer, and the wild yak. Mainly subsistence farmers, they are desperately poor.

Phunjok Lama identified an opportunity to not only empower his fellow countrymen and women with jobs and education, but also a chance to make them the stewards of their own land by involving them in enhanced conservation initiatives focused on building eco-tourism, and preventing illegal logging and forest fires. He calls this approach “leading by locals”.

“My project focuses on initiating local biodiversity conservation, promoting local leadership, local ownership, and building resilient communities,” he says.

The soaring mountain peaks of Nepal are ecologically unique and very sensitive. The animals and humans that live here have adapted to this icy and rocky environment over hundreds of thousands of years, and even the smallest changes can bring disruption.

As an adviser to Humla’s representative in Nepal’s parliament, Phunjok Lama is uniquely placed to structure environmental programmes that can also be used in other parts of the country.

The Rolex Perpetual Planet initiative and the Rolex Awards for Enterprise both encourage and celebrate community involvement and outreach, and Phunjok Lama’s conservation efforts in Nepal are emblematic of these important factors.

“We really need to recognise the community effort, their values, their traditions — and make them the real stewards of the initiative,” he says.

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