Overview
- The Mangrove Photography Awards announced their 2026 winners on July 24–25, with Indian photographer Gaurav Patil taking the overall prize for a UV-exposure image of a ghost net caught in a mangrove near Nandgaon village, Maharashtra.
- Ghost nets are abandoned or lost fishing gear that can entangle wildlife, break into microplastics and physically choke mangrove trees, and WWF estimates between 500,000 and 1 million tons of fishing equipment enter the ocean each year.
- Coverage and prize entries from 87 countries highlighted other human pressures on mangroves, including aquaculture, sea-level rise and coastal development, and a December 2025 Bombay High Court decision approving a Mumbai coastal road that could affect more than 45,000 mangrove trees.
- Organizers used the awards to push conservation best practices, saying large-scale planting often fails and that restoring natural hydrology — re-establishing tidal water flow — is a more effective way to revive degraded mangrove habitat.
- The contest drew about 5,258 entries and paired striking wildlife and human-interest photos with warnings from scientists such as the IUCN that more than half of global mangroves face risk of collapse by 2050, putting carbon storage and coastal livelihoods at stake.