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© SR Bhattacharyya

Congratulations to all the 2024 winners

On 4th June 2024 the winners of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photography Award 2024 were announced.

Now in its fourth year, the awards have once again attracted a stunning collection of entries, with 11,000 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 2025 edition from 3rd of September to 3rd of November, 2024.

The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photographer of the Year 2024

Aaron Gekoski

with ‘See No Evil’

The 2024 Grand Prize winner, selected by our prestigious jury of photography professionals, is this poignant image of an orangutan shot at a wildlife tourism attraction in Bangkok by environmental photojournalist and film-maker Aaron Geskoski.

Orangutans are commonly used in performances across Asia. Here at Safari World they have to perform a number of routines, like ‘dancing’ in bikinis and fighting each other. After the shows, they are used for photo opportunities. In the background we see the Three Wise Monkeys - see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil – symbolic of how we ignore the cruelties inherent in these activities. In order to supply attractions such as these orangutans are often stolen from the wild, with their mothers killed in the process.

Aaron wins the title of Environmental Photographer of the Year 2024, alongside 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 2024 Award Ceremony.

Public Award 2024

The Public Award was chosen from the shortlisted images by a public vote which was open to all. Over 6,000 votes were cast, and the winner is this image by Fernando Faciole of a female giant anteater being released back into her habitat in the Brazilian Cerrado after undergoing a series of cardiac examinations.

Fernando Faciole

with ‘Rainy Release’

Students’ Choice 2024

The Students' Choice prize is chosen by a selection of the school students of Monaco. Thomas Vijayan wins the €500 prize for his stunning image of Emperor penguins with their chick.

Thomas Vijayan

with ‘Parenting Goals’

Category Winners 2024

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.

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

Jaime Rojo with ‘Explosion of Monarchs’

2nd place

Soumya Ranjan Bhattacharyya with ‘Galaxies at my feet’

3rd place

Vladimir Cech Jr. with ‘Sumatran serow’

Ocean Worlds

Images that illustrate the richness of our seas and oceans, whether on or under the surface, and showcase the diversity of marine wildlife.

1st place

Magnus Lundgren with ‘Inner space hitchhiker’

2nd place

Nataya Chonecadeedumrongkul with ‘Barrel Sponge Symphony Orchestra’

3rd place

Andrew Pollard with ‘Gentoo Flying High’

Polar Wonders

Images depicting landscapes, wildlife and local communities in the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions.

1st place

Daniel Valverde Fernandez with ‘Shaking off the snow’

2nd place

Ivan Pedretti with ‘Rainbow glacier’

3rd place

Florian Ledoux with ‘On the thin ice’

Humanity Versus Nature

Images that depict the conflicting relationship between humans and nature, and the negative impact of human activities on the environment: issues related to the consequences of climate change (droughts, wildfires, 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

Aaron Gekoski with ‘See No Evil’

2nd place

Alvaro Herrero Lopez-Bletran with ‘Hopeless’

3rd place

Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar with ‘Face to face’

Change Makers: Reasons for Hope

Images that highlight the efforts and actions implemented globally by communities and organisations that help build a more sustainable world and more harmonious relationship between man and nature. It aims to demonstrate hope for Humanity and for the Planet.

1st place

Aaron Gekoski with ‘Substitute Rhinos’

2nd place

Marcus Westberg with ‘Seeds of hope’

3rd place

Fernando Faciole with ‘Rainy Release’

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

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.

See all the winners

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More about our partners

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 750 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 about the Foundation
Visit the Foundation's Award website