LA PLATA — A La Plata environmental activist who started a nonprofit as a teenager has won a national award for young environmental leaders.
Esther Bonney, 19, was named a 2026 winner of the Brower Youth Award last week, according to Earth Island Institute, which runs the program. She is one of six prizewinners this year recognized for work to transform the environmental movement in North America and beyond.
Native plants and mental health
Bonney founded Nurture Natives in 2022 to promote native biodiversity across the Chesapeake Bay region, linking habitat restoration with youth mental health. The nonprofit partners with dozens of organizations to run educational programs and native plant giveaways.
According to the award announcement, Nurture Natives has engaged more than 15,000 young people, facilitated the planting of 3 million native seeds and restored more than 420 acres of habitat across Maryland.
The group has been recognized before. It received the 2024 President’s Environmental Youth Award for helping restore natural ecosystems while giving young people tangible ways to act on their concerns and improve their mental health.
A string of honors
The Brower award is the latest in a run of national recognition for Bonney. In 2024, the Chronicle reported that she received the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. A year later, the Chronicle profiled how she turned grief into environmental action.
Named for David Brower, a founder of Earth Island Institute and former executive director of the Sierra Club, the Brower Youth Awards have honored young environmental leaders since 2000. Winners are typically between 13 and 22 years old.
Why it matters locally
Native plants are a cornerstone of Chesapeake Bay restoration. Their deep roots hold soil and filter runoff before it reaches streams and rivers, and they support the insects and birds that non-native lawns and ornamentals do not. Efforts like Bonney’s put that work in the hands of young people in Charles County and across the watershed.
