Four projects that won the World Press Photo Contest 2025 from different categories highlighted the amplified environmental concerns experienced across the globe. On World Environment Day, 2025, we focus on the themes and what they tried to accentuate.
From the arid riverbeds of the Amazon to the nickel mining ores of Halmahera island, these enthralling projects pertaining to environmental themes featured in the World Press Photo Award, depicting the adverse impact of human civilisation on the environment. The Award is an annual contest conducted to highlight exemplary contribution to the field of photojournalism, championing pictures that depict the 바카라world바카라s complexities, promote dialogue and inspire action.바카라
Founded in the Netherlands in 1955, the competition focuses on different regions across the world to bring across photos on various themes. On the World Environment Day 2025, we take a look back at these pictures highlighting environmental degradation.
A young man looks ahead, surrounded by the arid lands of Amazon, as he brings food to his mother who lives in the Amazonian village of Manacapuru in Brazil. The village was once accessible by boat. However, due to the aggravating water crisis in the region, he has to walk two kilometres along the dry riverbed of the Solimões River to reach her.
won the World Press Photo Award in the South America category. It paints a telling contrast of the area that once housed an abundant river ecosystem. The vital ecosystem was a source of livelihood for many residents of the area, whose boats now rest in the dry sandbanks.
The rampant industrialisation has rid the world of its natural defenses like deforestation while also contributing to air pollution. won the award for the Asia-Pacific and Oceania category highlighting precisely this issue. The picture shows workers riding towards a nickel smelting and processing plant in Weda Bay on Halmahera island of Indonesia. Two workers glance from the back of the tempo as heavy rains flood the area.
The residents of the island used to rely on fishing and farming crops such as cloves, cocoa and coconut, until the government바카라s 2020 directive that banned the export of nickel ore. The directive focused on developing a strong domestic ecosystem for nickel products, instead of merely exporting raw materials. This forced companies to set up industries to process nickel ore before selling it, which propped up replacing farm land and forests.
According to Climate Rights International (CRI), 5,331 hectares of tropical forests have been cut within nickel mining concessions on Halmahera. The World Press Photo also cites one local health center recording a 25-fold increase in respiratory diseases between 2020 and 2023, due to industrial pollution in the area.
won the World Press Photo award in the Africa category. It shows a young man sorting through fisher nets on the shore of Lake Kivu in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Congruent with the theme of the World Environment Day 2025, 바카라Beating Plastic Pollution바카라, the picture sheds light on the pollution of the waterways of Lake Kivum majorly due to plastic pollution. The lake serves as a source of livelihood for several in the area, however, the presence of methane gas reserves below the lake바카라s sediment presents an ethical dilemma. While the extraction points towards economic growth and development, it also poses the risk of environmental damage and potential safety hazards.
depicts residents carrying their belongings as the river overflows in Ilagan city, Isabella, northern Philippines due to heavy rains and damage from Typhoon Toraji. Clicked by Noel Celis, the picture won the contest in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania category highlighting how three of the four cyclones in the area developed into Typhoons leaving at least 160 people dead and millions displaced.
The climate crisis has intensified to levels beyond comprehension with a Philippine Climate Change Assessment Cycle report pointing to a 210% increase in typhoons hitting the Philippines since 2012. Devastated farmlands and damaged infrastructure owing to the Typhoons is now a common phenomenon in the area.