This year’s UK Women of the Future Award had gone to British marine conservationist Emily Cunningham.
The award recognizes Cunningham’s outstanding contribution to conservation, and highlights of her career so far include:
- Her work on two pioneering coastal conservation projects, which secured over £5 million/~US$7 million/~€5.8 million in funding.
- Cunningham was named in 2020 as a Global 30 under 30 Environmental Leader.
- She has also been a board member of the UK’s leading marine conservation organization.
Recently, Cunningham has spent the last 18 months on a ship on an expedition to Antarctica and the Americas. She is also in the process of writing her first book.
Announcing her win, the judges stated:
“Emily’s love and commitment to the ocean was hugely inspiring and grounded in expertise. Her potential for global influence is clear from growing Motion for the Ocean, the publication of her upcoming book, and global advocacy.”
While Cunningham herself stated:
“It’s still not quite sunk in! I was thrilled to be shortlisted, but to win is mind-blowing. Working in ocean conservation can be a thankless task given the scale of challenges facing our ocean, so it means a lot for all my efforts over the past decade to have been recognised in this way.“
