Mangroves on the Equador coastline. © Ammit Jack Since 2008, Ecuador’s Socio Bosque Program has been protecting the country’s environment through incentive payments to individual and community land owners. Socio Bosque has to date protected nearly 1.3 million hectares of important habitat. In 2013, the government decided to expand the program to mangroves, one of the most productive and threatened ecosystems in the world.

ASOARTESANAS, a cooperative of women that collect and prepare plastic bags to be crocheted into eco-bags, were recognized at Rio+20 in June with the Equator Prize by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). ASOARTESANAS was one of the 25 selected out of 800 applicants to receive this $5,000 prize, as well as one of 10 who received an additional $20,000 special recognition award at the conference on sustainable development.