Mangrove Photography Awards 2026: see the winning photos of the competition dedicated to mangrove ecosystems

Five thousand two hundred and fifty-eight photographs arrived from 87 countries: these are the numbers of the twelfth edition of the Mangrove Photography Awards, the competition promoted by the environmental organization Mangrove Action Project to tell, through the lens, the mangrove ecosystems of the entire planet. This year’s jury included well-known names in international nature photography, such as Karine Aigner, Steve Winter, Esther Horvath, Pier Nirandara, Dhritiman Mukherjee and Morgan Heim, and the winner of the title of Mangrove Photographer of the Year was the Indian photographer Gaurav Patil.

An abandoned net, thirteen seconds of exposure

The award-winning shot is called Trapped Glow: When Life Meets Ruins (Tangled glow: When life meets the ruins), shows a ghost fishing net, illuminated in ultraviolet, entangled in the roots of a mangrove on the coast of Nandgaon, Maharashtra, not far from Mumbai.

Patil created the image with a thirteen-second exposure, a technical expedient that transforms a real environmental problem (nets lost or abandoned by fishing boats and dragged by the currents until they get stuck between the branches) into an almost ghostly image. “I wanted to document it in an artistic way to attract the attention of the viewer,” explained the photographer, who has been following this phenomenon for several years.

The animals that inhabit the mangroves

Wildlife shots also appear among the category winners. In the section dedicated to birds, Mark Ian Cook won with March of the Flamingos (March of the Flamingos), a group of American flamingos filmed from the helicopter while observing a young lemon shark in the shallow waters of Florida Bay, a species which, the author recalls, had almost disappeared from the area due to hunting and the feather trade in the early twentieth century and which today is slowly returning thanks to the restoration of freshwater flows.

For mammals, Kallol Mukherjee wins with Where the mangroves begin (Where the Mangroves Begin), two jungle cat cubs photographed at the edge of the forest in the Sundarban Tiger Reserve.

For the other species he rewards Evan Cooper with Seeking refuge among the mangroves (Seeking Refuge in the Mangroves), a juvenile green turtle that finds shelter among roots in the Bahamas, protected there from tiger sharks.

Landscapes, from above and underwater

In the black and white landscape category, Abijith Soman wins with The Footprint of the Earth (Footprint of the Earth), an island in the backwaters of Kerala which, seen from above, draws the outline of a footprint: many of these islands were once mangrove forest, deforested to make way for coconut plantations, and now the vegetation is slowly reclaiming the land.

From the air the Brazilian Lucas Gonçalves Garcias wins with MangueBeat (MangueBeat), which depicts the Tejipió River in Recife separating the shrimp farms of Ilha de Deus residents from a tract of mangrove reclaimed for a Navy base.

Among the shots on the ground, Ryuhei Suguri won the prize with Sotto una luce antica (Beneath Ancient Light), a solitary mangrove photographed at night under the Milky Way in Indonesia.

In the underwater category, the Frenchman Ewan Tregarot wins with Hunting ground under the canopy (Feeding grounds under the canopy), a school of predatory fish hunting among submerged roots in Bonaire.

The threats and the people who defend the mangroves

The Threats section rewards the Turkish Zafer Kizilkaya with Red Mangrove Harvest (Red mangrove harvest), image of illegal logging of mangroves in Bangladesh’s Sundarban, where timber fuels the charcoal industry and deforestation puts honey harvesters and wildlife alike at risk.

In the category dedicated to means of subsistence, the Brazilian Roosevelt Cassio wins with A necklace of crabs (String of Crabs), a fisherman showing off his daily harvest.

For conservation and restoration Garry Lotulung stands out with Seeds of Hope from a Coastal Village (Seeds of hope from a coastal village), the story of Pasijah, a fifty-six year old from a village in Demak, Java, who for years has been planting mangroves to stem the water that has already submerged two hundred families in his village. “Ichwan and I planted about 15 thousand seedlings in 2021. The next morning, when I went back to check, the waves had taken them all away,” says the woman in the caption of the shot.

The award for the best portfolio goes to the Italian Nicolò Brugnara with Pillars in the Sea (Pillars in the Sea), which documents Mumbai’s new coastal road: a 1.4 billion euro project that involves the felling of 45 thousand trees and threatens 75% of the Manori Creek mangrove forest, in an area where a decade of restoration between 2012 and 2022 failed in 52% of the sites despite over 5 million dollars invested.

The special prizes

The title of Young Mangrove Photographer of the Year goes to the Thai Katanyou Wuttichaitanakorn with Adaptation (Adaptation), mosquitoes photographed while feeding on the blood of a jumping goby, unusual behavior for insects that normally feed on warm-blooded animals.

We have the Emirates Award, awarded to Shyjith Onden Cheriyath with Where Life Converges (Where Life Converges), a network of canals among the mangroves of Ras Al Khaimah.

Finally, the Arabian Gulf Award, won by Saudi Abdullah Alsheikh with Where the Mangroves Breathe (Where the Mangroves Breathe), an aerial view of the Kingdom’s mangrove coast at low tide.