On April 23, 2025, Cosmopolitan editor in chief Willa Bennett hosted a conversation with actor and producer Auli’i Cravalho and two winners of The World Around Young Climate Prize during the Hearst Eco-Conscious Living Summit.
Cravalho discussed how her upbringing in Hawaii has formed her relationship with the earth—especially the Hawaiian proverb “He ali’i ka ‘āina, he kauwā ke kanaka,” which translates to “the land is the chief, man is its servant.” She discussed how this feeling of homeland infuses all of her projects. Bennett and Cravalho then welcomed the Young Climate Prize winners, Amara Nwuneli and Dayana Blanco.
Nwuneli is a Nigeria-based activist and storyteller. At the age of 13, she founded Preserve Our Roots to build connections and to have a voice in policy. Now she is 17, and her organization has 250 members. Together they act as storytellers, educators, and policy shapers aiming to maximize their social impact with a network of urban green spaces in Nigeria—the group’s latest initiative, called G.R.E.E.N. They are transforming an underutilized plot of land into a park built entirely from recycled and repurposed materials.
Blanco is an Indigenous woman living near the Uru Uru Lake in the Bolivian Andes, an internationally recognized wetland reserve. Urban waste and mining discharge from the nearby city of Oruro have severely polluted the lake, but since 2019, Blanco and others have been adapting the ecological knowledge of their ancestors to restore it to health. Making use of collected plastic waste and harnessing the absorptive abilities of totoras, a native reed, the team’s efforts have so far reduced contamination in parts of the lake by up to 30 percent and have seen animals return to the area.
Watch the women discuss the best ways that we can all help the earth by writing our own script for collaboration.
Watch all the discussions from the Hearst Eco-Conscious Living Summit HERE.
