Rewilding Europe Award: “Iberian lynx” snaps up prestigious images prize

The profitable entry

Rewilding Europe is delighted to announce that the winner of the Rewilding Europe Award on this 12 months’s prestigious European Wildlife Photographer of the 12 months competitors has been chosen. The beautiful profitable picture – entitled “Iberian lynx” – was shot by Swedish photographer Staffan Widstrand. It depicts the resurgence of one in every of Europe’s most iconic predators in its pure habitat, emphasising the significance of restoring pure processes and predator-prey dynamics in rewilding.

Celebrating highly effective imagery that showcases the restoration of Europe’s wild nature via rewilding, the Rewilding Europe Award was launched in 2022. The award is a good way of connecting folks with nature and selling the achievements and wide-ranging advantages of the burgeoning European rewilding motion.

The proper rewilding snapshot

The European Wildlife Photographer of the 12 months competitors is organised by the German Society for Nature Pictures (GDT). Staffan Widstrand’s award-winning picture was chosen from a set of entries by a jury panel that included Laurien Holtjer, Rewilding Europe’s Director Engagement and Public Relations, and famend wildlife photographer Neil Aldridge. The panel additionally included all members of the European Wildlife Photographer of the 12 months jury: Nationwide Geographic’s Senior Picture Editor Alexa Keefe, wildlife photographer and podcaster Matt Maran, marine photographer Rachael Talibart, GDT President Stephan Fürnrohr, and conservation photojournalist Marcus Westberg.

“Staffan’s {photograph} encapsulates the magic of rewilding completely,” says Laurien Holtjer. “His picture is not only about the great thing about the lynx. It’s about restoring the well being and performance of nature, and the wide-ranging advantages of bringing again a species that may assist to form the atmosphere round it.”

Therapeutic waters

This 12 months’s Rewilding Europe award additionally highlighted the significance of wholesome river methods and marine restoration. Second prize went to Austrian photographer Bernhard Schubert for his picture “Huchen habitat”, which vividly illustrates how rewilding efforts can breathe new life into river ecosystems. Wholesome, free-flowing rivers are vibrant corridors of life, demonstrating the important function pure processes can and will play in shaping our landscapes.

The extremely counseled picture “Seeds of hope” by British photographer Lewis Jefferies captures underwater efforts to regenerate seagrass meadows. His {photograph} showcases the function of seagrass beds as a vital habitat that helps marine biodiversity, captures and shops carbon, and enhances water high quality. Whereas rewilding emphasises pure regeneration, Lewis’s picture exhibits how preliminary interventions can generally be essential to kick-start the restoration of significant ecosystems, offering a basis for nature to flourish independently.

The extremely counseled picture “Hope for the way forward for our rivers”, shot by Dutch photographer Arthur de Bruin, depicts the discharge of juvenile European sturgeon within the River Rhine. A number of species of sturgeon as soon as thrived in European rivers, serving to to keep up the well being of aquatic ecosystems. The reintroduction of sturgeon in European waterways epitomises the broader revival of rivers throughout the continent.

Boosting pure grazing

The restoration of pure processes additionally supplies the backdrop for the extremely counseled {photograph} “King of the East”, which was shot by German photographer Florian Smit. Florian’s picture, which contains a majestic European bison in Poland’s Białowieża Nationwide Park, celebrates the exceptional comeback of this iconic keystone species in Europe, which is supported by ongoing rewilding efforts in lots of international locations, together with in a number of of Rewilding Europe’s rewilding landscapes. Reintroducing these massive grazers boosts the restoration of important ecological processes and might help the event of nature-based economies.

Connecting folks with a wilder Europe

The annual European Wildlife Photographer of the 12 months competitors showcases the best nature images from Europe and all over the world. Now a longtime a part of the competitors, the Rewilding Europe Award promotes pictures that transcend aesthetics, championing the rewilding motion’s imaginative and prescient of a Europe the place folks and nature thrive alongside one another. It celebrates photographers who not solely seize beautiful wildlife, however the contextual rewilding tales behind them. As folks and organisations throughout Europe work collectively to make Europe a wilder place, selling these tales of restoration, resilience, and reconnection might help to encourage additional efforts.

“The Rewilding Europe Award is greater than only a images prize,” explains Laurien Holtjer. “It’s a solution to join folks with the rewilding motion and help the scaling up of sensible rewilding. These pictures present us what’s doable after we take motion to revive nature after which let nature take the lead in managing itself. They’re a testomony to the resilience of our wild areas, and a name to motion for a wilder, more healthy future.”

Selling rewilding to a wider viewers

The main entries on this 12 months’s Rewilding Europe Award can be honoured on the European Wildlife Photographer of the 12 months 2024 awards ceremony. This may happen throughout the GDT Worldwide Nature Pictures Pageant, which takes place within the German city of Lünen between October 25 and 27. The primary and second prize winners will obtain 1,000 euros and 500 euros respectively, whereas their work will function in an exhibition that excursions Germany and Europe over the subsequent three years.

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