Landscape Heroes Competition: Fighting for Rights
Become a Global Landscape Hero and fly to a GLF event to share your story with the world
Submissions and voting for this competition have closed.
Read here the winning story and see all the finalists here.
Bring to light what individuals, communities and organizations are doing across continents and countries to promote and fight for land rights.
Do you know someone who’s working to secure and improve rights across local and/or indigenous communities in order to build a more sustainable future?
How about someone who’s fighting to get communities’ land rights recognized?
We call these people “Landscape Heroes”. Show us what your landscape heroes are doing, and help them to catch the world’s attention.
Tell us your story in up to 300 words, and send us a photo to illustrate it, as well as any video and/or relevant links you have available. Your submission could reach more than a quarter of a billion people.
Submissions close: 1 June
Finalist submissions open for voting: 3 – 19 June
Winner announced: On stage at GLF Bonn 2019. To find out the top finalist, watch the GLF Bonn 2019 Digital edition on 23 June at 5 30 pm CET+2.
What’s in it for the heroes?
- The top landscape hero (based on final public voting) will be invited at one of GLF’s events in 2019 to present their work
- A feature on the GLF media outlet Landscape News, which reaches almost 96,000 people
- Regular featuring on GLF social media channels, which reach around 250 million people
- See stories from the first edition of Landscape Heroes here.
See below for the terms and conditions
Who can participate?
Anyone! If you want to put environmental action into the spotlight, then this competition is for you. You can nominate yourself, a community member or a community organization that you know of or work with. We are looking for a range of entries that represent various corners of the world.
The winner of the competition will be invited to attend and present their work at one of GLF’s events in 2019. The most inspiring stories and complete submissions will be featured and shared across our GLF products and platforms, including: podcasts; digital summits; videos; the website; social and online communication; and Landscape News.
How will the stories be chosen?
In the first phase, a GLF-designated panel will evaluate the stories and select the finalists, based on the following criteria:
- Meeting basic requirements such as story length and alignment with the theme
- Originality and style
- Photo and/or video quality and relevance to story
The number of finalists will depend on the quality of stories submitted.
In the second phase, between 3 and 19 June, finalists’ stories will be published across GLF platforms, and the winner will be chosen by popular vote.
How to submit your story?
Upload your 300-word-max story via the submission form. Tell us why this person or organization is your landscape hero. Include their name and contact information, as well as at least one image. If it’s available, you can also upload a video of your chosen nominee or their project, and/or relevant links to their work.
Photo submission requirements:
- Submit your photo(s) in .jpg format. Minimum size is 3,000 pixels high or wide; maximum size is 9 MB
- Provide us with a title, a caption and the photo credits, as well as the photo location if possible
- Include the title of the photograph and the photographer’s name in the file name – for example, ‘Forest-JohnSmith.jpg’
- You can submit a maximum of 4 photos
- Please note photo submission will be made under a ‘no rights reserved’ (CC0) Creative Commons license
Video submission requirements:
- Submit original video content
- Video length can be between 1.5 and 5 minutes, but it’s best to keep it short for maximum online engagement
- Submit your video in English, French, Spanish or German; for other languages, please provide a translation
- Upload videos:
- via a file-sharing service – we recommend Dropbox, because it’s free and can handle large files – that creates a URL link to the file
- in one of these file formats: MP4, MOV or WMV
- in the aspect ratio of 16:9 (horizontal)
Make sure you read and agree to the Terms and Conditions. We will email all published entries when their submissions go online and are available for voting.
Terms and conditions
- By submitting a nomination, the story and image/video assets can be used by the GLF to promote the featured hero across its communication products and platforms
- By submitting blogs, photos and/or videos to the competition, writers agree to a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial share-alike license (BY-NC-SA). Competition organizers will use these materials for event products and exhibition at Forum events
- Writers are not permitted to use these pieces for commercial purposes
- Professional writers who work for the media are required to attach an authorization signed by a representative of the media company employing them. This authorization should state that the organizers of the contest have permission to publish the author’s piece from the media outlet in which the blog originally appeared
- The GLF reserves the right to disqualify contestants in the case of suspicious activity throughout the voting period. Fraudulent activities will be monitored and will lead to exclusion.
- The GLF will invite the winner of this competition to a GLF event in 2019, and will bear the travel cost including airfare and hotel accomodation. The GLF will choose the GLF event to attend, and book the flights, hotel and necessary transfers on the winners behalf. Valid travel documents and potential travel visa arrangements are the responsibility of the winner; the GLF will bear no responsibility for any visa-related issues affecting travel.