Merlin Sheldrake, Toby Kiers and Giuliana Furci: the fungal revolution in the Climate Breakthrough Award 2025
Mycorrhizal fungi growing with a plant root. Credit: Dr Yoshihiro Kobae
Imagine a vast hidden kingdom beneath your feet: a network of living filaments that connects forests, recycles nutrients, and stores carbon. Three visionaries dedicated to this "mycelial world" have just been awarded for bringing this underground realm to the center of the climate fight. Merlin Sheldrake, Toby Kiers, and Giuliana Furci – each with a unique "superpower" in science communication, research, and fungal conservation – have jointly won the prestigious Climate Breakthrough Award 2025, the world's largest climate prize for individuals.
This recognition will grant the team flexible multi-year funding (4 million dollars) to develop and scale their bold initiative, which seeks large-scale transformation in policies, economics, and society in the face of the climate crisis. Why is a climate prize now highlighting fungi? Because these experts have identified a massive "blind spot" in the climate movement: the critical role of the fungal kingdom in planetary health.
Why is this award important for the fungal kingdom?
Fungi play a central role in the carbon cycle and ecosystem regeneration. Mycorrhizal networks beneath the soil remove billions of tons of CO₂ each year, storing up to 75% of terrestrial carbon. However, more than 90% of areas with the highest fungal diversity remain unprotected.
With the Climate Breakthrough Award, Sheldrake, Kiers, and Furci will push an agenda for fungi to finally enter the global climate debate: from environmental regulations that include funga (a term already proposed to refer to fungal diversity alongside flora and fauna), to restoration projects that harness mycorrhizae to sequester carbon and regenerate degraded soils.
Who are these ambassadors of funga?
Photo of the three awardees, Giuliana Furci, Merlin Sheldrake, and Toby Kiers – Instagram source
Giuliana Furci: the funga advocate
In 2012, Giuliana founded the Fungi Foundation, the world's first NGO dedicated exclusively to fungal conservation. Thanks to her work, Chile became the first country to include them in its environmental legislation. Additionally, Giuliana coined the term funga, opening a path for fungi to appear alongside flora and fauna in international conservation policies.
Her work has inspired governments, organizations, and communities to consider fungi as part of the biodiversity to be protected. She is the activist and political voice of this trio.
Merlin Sheldrake: the narrator of entangled life
Biologist and author of the bestseller Entangled Life, Merlin has achieved something extraordinary: connecting millions of people with the beauty and complexity of mycelium. His ability to translate science into captivating stories has changed public perception of fungi.
As a science communicator and scientist, he has promoted alongside Furci the Fauna Flora Funga initiative, which has already achieved that several countries include fungi in biodiversity plans. Merlin brings the magic of scientific storytelling, essential for inspiring global action.
Toby Kiers: the underground explorer
Professor of evolutionary biology in Amsterdam, Toby has spent two decades researching how mycorrhizal fungi distribute carbon and nutrients underground. Her studies reveal that fungal networks function as living supply chains, capable of transporting resources in bidirectional pulses.
Additionally, she co-founded SPUN (Society for the Protection of Underground Networks), an international project that has already mapped fungal biodiversity in soils across more than 100 countries. Her crown jewel is the Underground Atlas, the first global map of mycorrhizal diversity. This atlas not only shows where the fungal "hotspots" are, it also provides data to guide conservation policies and ecological restoration projects.
Science, action, and communication: a mycelial triad
Global map from SPUN's Underground Atlas project, showing the diversity and distribution of mycorrhizal fungi beneath the soil.
What's fascinating about the "fungi team" is how their talents interweave like mycelium itself: Merlin communicates, Toby provides cutting-edge data and science, Giuliana converts that knowledge into policies and action. Together, they want to close a huge gap in the climate movement: the absence of fungi in conservation and mitigation strategies.
Their vision is clear: the climate crisis cannot be solved without fungi. Protecting their underground networks means protecting Earth's largest carbon recycling and storage system.
Boscum and mushrooms: towards a circular and regenerative economy
At Boscum we are also a mycelial triad and we celebrate this news with enthusiasm – fungi are the heart of our work: cultivating them, transforming them into food and medicinal extracts, and demonstrating their potential in a circular economy. Where others see waste – we see nutrients for mycelium, nutrients to transform the world, our wellbeing, and ourselves.
The victory of Sheldrake, Kiers, and Furci confirms what we experience daily: fungi are architects of regeneration, indispensable allies for redesigning productive systems that mimic nature's cycles. That they receive the Climate Breakthrough Award means the world is beginning to recognize them as such.
In simple words: the future will be fungal, or it won't be sustainable.