Environmental Photographer of the Year 2014

A group of women weave a fishing net in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, in preparation for the annual flooding of the river and its tributaries. Fishing communities rely on this flooding to bring an influx of fish and shrimp to the region. With climate change worsening, flood levels are becoming more inconsistent, which has important consequences for the livelihood of locals. In 2012, lower than average flood levels saw fish yields decrease by 40% compared to previous year.

Fishing net making in Mekong Delta, 2012, by Tuyet Trinh Do (Vietnam)

People living in Sundarban, West Bengal, India, face regular shortages of water. The tropical climate has resulted in different physical effects from climate change, including increased temperature and precipitation, increased salinity and extreme weather events such as floods, cyclones and droughts.

‘Wrapping a surviving tree’ - Central Cardamom Protected Forest (CCPF), Southwest CambodiaLuke Duggleby shows Cambodian Buddhist monks and local villagers blessing one of the remaining large trees in an area destroyed to make way for a banana plantation.

‘Solar 4’ – Feuntes de Andalucia, Seville, SpainThe Gemasolar solar tower power plant, featured in this image by Steve Morgan, is a commercial scale solar plant which is paving the way for new thermosolar electrical generation technology.

Above, photographer Kevin McElvaney’s picture shows Agbogbloshie in Accra, Ghana. The area is at the end of illegal electronic waste trading routes, where young people aged between 10 and 25 attempt to collect metals and extract copper from old monitors.

’Bohpal: Facing 30 Portrait’ – Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, IndiaFrancesca Moore’s picture is part of a project looking at people and their environment thirty years after the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

Photographer description: The flooding on the Somerset Levels at Burrowbridge. Numerous properties in the rural areas of Thorney, Muchelney and Burrowbridge in Somerset were hit with up to four feet of water when the nearby River Parrett burst its banks in January 2014.

by Matilda Temperley (UK)/EPOTY 2014

‘Indigenous Munduruku men fight construction of the Belo Monte Megadam 2’ – Altamira, BrazilTaylor Weidman's photo shows an indigenous Munduruku man and a member of the Brazilian Federal Police arguing during an occupation of the Belo Monte Dam - the first of a series of dams planned across the Amazon.

‘On the shore of a vanishing island’ – Ghoramara Island, West Bengal, IndiaDaesung Lee shows Ghoramora Island, West Bengal, India, which has been gradually eroded due to the impact of climate change since 1960. Currently, two out of three households have moved out and less than 50 percent of its land is left.

In this image by TJ Watt, a woman stands among the charred remains of an old-growth logging clearcut in the Klanawa Valley.

‘Digging Bulgaria’ – Krumovgrad, BulgariaAustralian photographer Alethia Casey shows a man in the village of Krumovgrad, Bulgaria, which is home to a controversial open-pit gold mine.

‘Shangri-La 1’ – Shanghai, ChinaAlnis Stakle’s image shows a suburb of Shanghai where old buildings are partly cleared to build new skyscrapers.

A collapsed coastal road between Skipsea and Ulrome on Yorkshire's east coast. The coast is composed of soft boulder clays which are very vulnerable to coastal erosion. This section of coast has been eroding since Roman times, with many villages having disappeared into the sea and is the fastest eroding coast in Europe. Climate change is speeding up the erosion, with rising sea levels rising, frequent storms and heavy rainfall all playing their part.

Coastal erosion near Hornsea, 2013, by Ashley Cooper (UK)

The small seaside resort of Swakopmund lies on the coast of Namibia. It was established in 1892 as the main harbour for Namibia’s German colonisers, and still bears the marks of those years of German rule. For much of the year, Swakopmund lies silently shrouded in fog. But in the summer, the fog lifts, and the tourists flock, drawn to the grand hotels, the moody beach and the bustling cafes. The population is a colourful mix of retired Germans, young natives living in housing projects just outside the main village, and the Himba tribes people who trek down from the north, dressed in traditional garb and sell self-made jewellery crafted from found objects. Supermarket, Himba, 2012, by Toufic Beyhum (UK

‘Camp of Shame’ – Campania, ItalyAntonio Busiello shows Roma children in Campania, Italy. Although the location of this photo is one of the most polluted in the western world, it has recently become home to a large Roma camp. It is now the most densely populated region of Italy with over 5.8 million people living in a 5,247 square mile (13,590 square kilometer) area.

END26-JUNI-2014