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© Alex Mustard and Lilian Blot (detail)

Congratulations to all the 2023 winners

On 1st June 2023 the winners of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photography Award 2023 were announced.

Now in its third year, the awards have once again attracted a stunning collection of entries, with 10,000 images submitted from around the globe.

The awards are an annual contest created with the aim of rewarding photographers who put their creativity to good use in raising awareness on environmental protection. Submitting photographers were invited to reflect on humanity’s relationship with nature, and the interrelation between human health and planetary health.

All the shortlisted images are now being presented in an exhibition in the Principality of Monaco, then touring in various locations around the world, as well as being printed in a high-quality photography book.

We look forward to rewarding more great work in the 2024 edition.

The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photographer of the Year 2023

Jasper Doest

with ‘Fight to the death’

The 2023 grand prize winner, selected by our prestigious jury of photography professionals, is this heart-rending image showing a scared and defiant elephant that has been struck by a freight train in the Lopé National Park in Gabon. The animal suffered a shattered hip and later died, with its meat being distributed by the park’s director amongst the local community. The train that hit this elephant was carrying manganese, a significant Gabonese export product. It highlights the everyday dangers that human infrastructure creates for wildlife.

For bringing this scene to the world’s attention, photographer Jasper Doest wins a €5000 grant, an invitation including travel and accommodation to the University of Ecuador’s Amazon Research Station in the heart of the Ecuadorian jungle, and an invitation including travel and accommodation to Monaco for the 2023 Award Ceremony.

Public Award

The Public Award was chosen from the shortlisted images by a public vote which was open to all. Over 5,000 votes were cast, and the winner, echoing the choice of the jury, is Jasper Doest, who wins a €500 prize.

Jasper Doest

with ‘Fight to the death’

Students’ Choice

The Students' Choice prize is new for 2023, and is chosen by a selection of the school students of Monaco. David Feuerhelm wins the €500 prize for his image of an ice cave in the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap on Iceland.

David Feuerhelm

with ‘Baby it's cold out there!’

Category Winners

The awards comprise five categories. Within each category our awards jury selected a winning image, which receives a €1000 prize, a 2nd and 3rd placed image, and other shortlisted images that will appear in the exhibition and book.

Polar Wonders

Photographers were invited to submit their most beautiful images depicting landscapes, wildlife and local communities in the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions.

1st place

Franco Banfi with ‘Tiny umbrella’

2nd place

Knut M Selmer with ‘The polarfox in the arctic winter’

3rd place

Dustin Patar with ‘Out for a Run’

Humanity Versus Nature

Images depicting the conflicting relationship between humans and nature around the world, and the negative impact of human activities on the environment: issues related to the consequences of climate change (droughts, deforestation, extreme climate events…), the loss of biodiversity (endangered species, disastrous interactions between humans and wildlife…), as well as the depletion of the world’s water resources.

1st place

Jasper Doest with ‘Fight to the death’

2nd place

Giacomo d'Orlando with ‘Coexisting with sea level rise’

3rd place

Pratik Chorge with ‘Risking life for the Thirst’

Ocean Worlds

Images that illustrate the incredible richness of the sea and the ocean surface and underwater seascapes as well as marine wildlife.

1st place

Simon Biddie with ‘My Kingdom’

2nd place

Franco Banfi with ‘Life cycle’

3rd place

Suliman Alatiqi with ‘Party of 3’

Into the Forest

Images highlighting the beauty of the flora and fauna that make up the forest ecosystem and the lives of native communities in the boreal, temperate and tropical forests.

1st place

Kallol Mukherjee with ‘Falling leaves are blue’

2nd place

Soumya Ranjan Bhattacharyya with ‘Have you ever seen the rain’

3rd place

Clement Fontaine with ‘Predator VS Predator’

Change Makers: Reasons for Hope

Images highlighting the efforts and actions implemented globally by communities based on their traditional knowledge and on innovative solutions to build a more sustainable world and more harmonious relationships between man and nature. It aims to demonstrate hope for Humanity and for the Planet.

1st place

Marcus Westberg with ‘Airborne’

2nd place

Tommy Trenchard with ‘Wildlife CSI Academy’

3rd place

Tom Shlesinger with ‘Checking Out a Coral Nursery’

Exhibition and Tours

Find out more

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.

Find out more © Gerardo CEBALLOS