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.
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.