Earth Photo Awards 2026 Winners Revealed
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- Britta Jaschinski won the Earth Photo Award 2026 for documenting the $23bn (£17bn) illegal wildlife trade, using a newly developed magnetic powder to detect human fingerprints on an elephant tusk confiscated at London's Heathrow airport.
- Filbert Minja won the David Wolf Kaye Future Potential award (photographers under 25) for "Roots of Healing," documenting Indigenous herbalists in Tanzania's Kilimanjaro and Arusha regions as a real, everyday practice rooted in environment and cultural tradition.
- Natalya Saprunova won the New Scientist Editors award for documenting permafrost thaw in the Inuvialuit territories of Canada's Northwest Territories, including a ringed seal stranded on Banks Island as melting sea ice releases mercury-contaminated sediment into the ocean.
- Payal Kakkar won the Royal Geographical Society Climate of Change award for "Lives of Extraction," documenting the Khairwar Indigenous community's resistance to coal mining in Singrauli, India; in December 2025, several photographed families were forcibly relocated by mining company operatives supported by armed forces, with no resettlement plans.
- Marco Garro won the Photoworks Digital Residency award for "Quiulacocha," a long-term investigation into mining at Cerro de Pasco, Peru—one of the world's most polluted places, situated at 4,300 metres above sea level in the Andes.
- Winning and shortlisted works are on view at the Royal Geographical Society in London until 24 July, alongside an interactive Summit Photo event running 17–19 July.
Why it matters: The awards converge environmental crises in a single frame—from a $23bn wildlife trafficking economy to mercury-laced Arctic permafrost—while Payal Kakkar's project attests that Khairwar families in India's Singrauli mining belt were forcibly relocated in December 2025 without resettlement, putting a human face on the cost of energy extraction.
