Coastal refugees, mud rituals, SpaceX, and orange lagoons: on the International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem, Mangrove Action Project is thrilled to announce the winners of the Mangrove Photography Awards 2024.
Link to all winning images and descriptions is available here.
Celebrating its 10th year, the awards harness the power of visual storytelling to drive awareness for mangrove conservation.
Found in 123 countries, mangroves are one of the world’s biggest allies against climate change — and one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. According to a recent Redlist of Ecosystems report, 50% of global mangrove ecosystems are at risk of collapse by 2050.
The Mangrove Photography Awards was founded for people immersed in the world of mangroves to shed light on the beauty and fragility of these precious ecosystems.
Year after year, creatives continue to inspire us with their incredible shots that help raise awareness of the people and wildlife that rely on these unique habitats, the threats they face, and why urgent action is needed to protect them.
The 2024 awards has been our most diverse yet, with over 2,500 entries from 74 nations, including new entries from Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Grenada, Guadeloupe, and Mauritania.
This year, India’s Supratim Bhattacharjee has been crowned Mangrove Photographer of the Year with his image, ‘Sinking Sundarbans’, a powerful shot of a young girl whose tea shop was destroyed following a cyclone.
“This is an example of an image being full of story,” says judge Morgan Heim. “The gaze of this young woman commands you to pay attention and not only ponder what is happening to the people and ecosystems of the mangrove, but think about our own responsibility to them.”
Winners have also been selected in six categories – People, Landscape, Underwater, Threats, Wildlife, and Conservation Stories – as well as the Young Mangrove Photographer of the Year award.
Announced in time for World Mangrove Day, these images are a stark reminder of the importance of mangrove ecosystems for people, wildlife, and our climate. As a UN Ocean Decade endorsed program, the awards hopes to catalyze action for their future preservation.
Judge Dhritiman Mukherjee said: “The Mangrove Photography Awards has become a platform to intrigue people about the magnificent ecological role mangroves play in all of our lives, and the need to preserve them.”
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The Mangrove Photography Awards is brought to you by Mangrove Action Project (MAP), a US-based non-profit whose mission is to empower communities worldwide to conserve, manage, and restore mangrove forests. Through science, training, and environmental education, they provide nature-based solutions for people and our planet.
The Mangrove Photography Awards is an endorsed Ocean Decade Activity.