WINNERS

Operation Elevacuation

  • Photographer
    David Higgs, United Kingdom
  • Prize
    Bronze Winner in Photojournalism/Environmental

Documentation of the world’s first mass African elephant relocation, pioneered by Clive Stockil and Clem Coetsee, as a new technique of population management control. In 1993 hundreds of elephants were saved from Zimbabwe’s drought-stricken Gonarezhou National Park and taken to Savé Valley Conservancy, proving complete elephant families could be moved successfully to areas of safety to avoid culling. Today Savé Valley Conservancy is one of the largest private "national parks" in Africa and over 30 years that ‘seed’ population of a little over 500 elephants has grown to nearly 3,000.