Eight Pioneering Policies on Living in Harmony With Nature Win the World Future Policy Award 2025
Panama’s Law 287 is among the winners of this year’s awards. The eight winning policies set new global benchmarks by showing how legal systems can be transformed into future-just frameworks – and thereby contributing to the well-being of all living beings on Earth, as well as future generations.
Hamburg, 9th October 2025 – Eight pioneering laws and policy frameworks have been named winners of the 2025 World Future Policy Award (WFPA), the world’s leading prize for policy solutions. This year, the WFPA recognises exemplary policies that foster and enable a paradigm shift in policy making in the way we understand our role in Nature and respect it – the foundation of all life.
Panama’s Law 287 has been recognized as one of the world’s best policies for Living in Harmony with Nature and Future Generations and honored with the World Future Policy Award 2025. The law recognizes Nature as a living being, with rights to exist, regenerate, and be restored. It is the only framework from the Americas to receive this award this year.
The approval of this law had the technical and scientific backing of international organizations such as Earth Law Center and The Leatherback Project, which worked together with the Panamanian government to substantiate and promote its approval throughout the legislative process. Its provisions not only guarantee the protection and restoration of ecosystems but also establish a specific obligation to preserve the country's water cycles. This award positions Panama at the forefront of the global Rights of Nature movement, demonstrating that the legal recognition of these rights is a viable and transformative policy. The award validates the country's pioneering approach, and it encourages other nations to follow this path, strengthening a global legal movement that seeks to redefine our relationship with the natural world for future generations.
This year’s winners were chosen from 41 nominations from 21 countries, narrowed down to 13 finalists under the theme Living in Harmony with Nature and Future Generations. An independent jury of international experts then identified the eight most outstanding policies. These groundbreaking frameworks recognize the legal rights of Nature and ecosystems, embed principles such as Earth Trusteeship and Indigenous wisdom, and place intergenerational justice at the heart of decision-making. The laws make an outstanding contribution to the well-being of present and future generations of all living beings on Earth.
Six policies are winners in the main category, while one is honored with the “Vision Award” and one takes home the “Global Impact Award”. Global Impact Award is a new category introduced this year, highlighting a policy that has transformative influence on legal and policy thinking worldwide. It inspires a global intergenerational movement and contributes to a fundamental paradigm shift within decision making and governance processes.
6 WORLD FUTURE POLICY AWARD WINNERS – These policies are outstanding candidates
Environmental Ombudsoffice of Tyrol (Tiroler Umweltanwaltschaft), Austria/Tyrol (1991)
Biodiversity Act, Bhutan (2022)
Law 287, which recognises the Rights of Nature and the related obligations of the State with these rights, Panama (2022)
National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (NEM:BA), South Africa (2004)
Law 19/2022 Granting Mar Menor and its basin status of a legal person, Spain (2022)
The National Environment Act, Uganda (2019)
1 VISION AWARD WINNER – A policy with visionary objectives and promise
International: BBNJ – Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (2023)
1 GLOBAL IMPACT AWARD – The Global Impact Award highlights the policy’s role as a pioneering model that inspires laws and movements around the world
Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act, Aotearoa New Zealand (2017)
“Since its creation, the World Future Policy Award has shown that visionary policymaking can change the course of history,” said Neshan Gunasekera, CEO of the World Future Council. “This year’s winners prove that safeguarding Nature and the rights of future generations is not just an aspiration — it is possible, practical, and already happening. They inspire hope, courage and action at a time when humanity urgently needs all of it.”
“We cannot separate our conservation crises from our governance crises,” said Katy Gwiazdon, Executive Director of the Center for Environmental Ethics and Law and Chair of the Ethics Specialist Group, IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law. “The World Future Policy Award recognizes this critical link between decision-makers and the impacts of their decisions on the community of life. We need compassion, we need creativity, we need courage. These winning policies can help lead us forward. They are ethics in action for the future of life.”
“This year's World Future Policy Award winners are a testament to the power of law to forge a sustainable and just future,” stated Dr Grethel Aguilar, Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “These pioneering policies, which draw from the wisdom of Indigenous and local knowledge systems, set a new standard for living in harmony with nature and future generations. We are proud to celebrate them at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, as we join forces to work together to shape a just world that values and conserves nature.”
Anda Filip, Director for Member Parliaments and External Relations at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), added: “Now, more than ever, we need to be sharing and implementing good and effective policies that can turn the tide of the climate emergency and safeguard our precious Planet Earth, for our children and for future generations. Solutions are out there, and they should be seized with courage, solidarity and political will!
The winners will be celebrated on 11 October at a high-level awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi at the IUCN Congress.
Media Contacts
About Panama´s Law 287
Constanza Prieto Figelist, Director of the Latin America Legal Program, Earth Law Center
M: cpfigelist@earthlaw.org (Spanish/English)
Callie Veelenturf, Executive Director, The Leatherback Project,
M: callie@leatherbackproject.org (English)
About the World Future Policy Award 2025
Miriam Petersen
M: miriam.petersen@ext.worldfuturecouncil.org
T. +353 (0) 89-4826484
Samia Kassid
M: samia.kassid@worldfuturecouncil.org
https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/p/living-in-harmony-with-nature-and-future-generations/
About the World Future Policy Award
The World Future Policy Award celebrates top policy solutions for us and generations to come. We raise global awareness for exemplary laws and policies, accelerating policy action toward a common future, where every living being lives in dignity on a healthy, sustainable planet. The Award focuses on topics where progress is particularly urgent and receive nominations from across the globe.
About the World Future Council
The World Future Council envisions a healthy planet with just and peaceful societies, both now and in the future. We are dedicated to identifying, developing, and promoting future-just solutions to the most pressing challenges humanity and Nature face today. The Council is composed of fifty eminent global changemakers elected from a variety of disciplines and facilitated by a technical team.
About Earth Law Center
Earth Law Center (ELC) is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes the application of the Rights of Nature at the local and international levels, creating alliances with local organizations for the recognition and enactment of laws that recognize the inherent rights of rivers, oceans, and terrestrial and coastal ecosystems. In this way, it aims to achieve a paradigm shift, fighting for the formal recognition of the Rights of Nature to exist, develop, and evolve. ELC seeks to guarantee ecosystems the same rights as individuals and companies, allowing them to defend their rights in national and international courts, not only for the benefit of people but also for the benefit of Nature itself.
About The Leatherback Project
The Leatherback Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting leatherback sea turtles and other threatened and endangered marine species through science, advocacy, storytelling, and community-driven action. By advancing research, sharing compelling narratives, and empowering local communities, they work to reduce fishing bycatch, establish and strengthen marine protected areas, and defend the intrinsic rights of Nature. They seek to restore balance, reduce anthropogenic pressures, and achieve a sustainable future for threatened ocean ecosystems and coastal habitats, enabling the recovery of endangered species such as the leatherback sea turtle.
