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© Alex Mustard and Lilian Blot (detail)

The 2023 shortlist is now live! These are the images that will appear in this year's international touring exhibition. Vote before the 16th of April to choose the winner of the Public Award prize from this shortlist.

The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photography Award is an annual contest created with the aim of rewarding photographers who put their creativity to good use in raising awareness on environmental protection.

Photographers are invited to reflect on humanity’s relationship with nature, and the interrelation between human health and planetary health.

The best photographs will be presented in an exhibition in the Principality of Monaco, then touring in various locations around the world, as well as in a high-quality photography book.

Exhibition and Tours

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Every year, at the end of the competition, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation presents that year’s Environmental Photography Award at an outdoor exhibition in the Principality of Monaco.

Large-format prints of the shortlisted and winning photographs are displayed in the heart of the tourist centre, conveying to the public the environmental values dear to the Sovereign and the Principality, and raising awareness of the issues.

The exhibition then travels internationally, contributing to the promotion of the Environmental Photography Award and the Foundation.

© Eric Mathon

The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photographer of the Year 2022

Easa Lebbe Muhammed Jamsith with ‘Tears’

The grand prize winner of the 2022 award was this heartbreaking image of an elephant’s final moments in a garbage dump in Oluvil, Sri Lanka. The elephant died after three days of being treated where it lay. It was the seventh such elephant death at this dump, and was caused by the elephant swallowing the plastic wrapping of the food which it was scavenging.

For his efforts in documenting this tragedy, Easa won a €5000 grant, a trip to the University of Ecuador’s Amazon Research Station in the heart of the Ecuadorian jungle, and a trip to Monaco for the inauguration of the 2022 Award exhibition.

Public Winner 2022

Mathieu Courdesses with ‘Black and Wild'

The 2022 Public Vote winner was this wonderful monochrome image of a silverback gorilla by Mathieu Courdesses from France. It was taken in the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, and if you click on Mathieu's image you can read his fascinating description of the search for the gorillas, and the process of asking the patriarch for his agreement to being photographed.

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Protecting & Progressing Planetary Health

HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco very early on promoted the ideal of a new relationship with nature and the various species with which we share our Earth. Aware that we were disrupting all the major planetary balances instead of safeguarding them, thus endangering the future of humanity, and having witnessed firsthand the profound upheavals wrought by the effects of climate change the Sovereign decided to become personally involved through His Foundation in order to amplify His action in favour of the environment.

Launched in 2006, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation has become a leading NGO for the preservation and education of sustainable development on a global scale. For fifteen years, the Foundation has significantly contributed to more than 720 projects focused on three main domains of action – climate change, biodiversity and water, in three priority areas: the Mediterranean basin, the Polar Regions, and the Least Developed Countries.

The global crisis we are facing today urges us to form a new relationship with a nature we thought we dominated, and it shows us that we cannot exist without It. The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation has the strong conviction that together we can positively rise from this crisis. By joining forces, we can create a more sustainable world for the generations to come.

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