Pangolins in Crisis: Brent Stirton, South Africa; 1st place, Natural world and wildlife. “Pangolins are the world’s most illegally trafficked mammals, with an estimated one million trafficked to Asia in the last 10 years. Their scales are used in traditional Chinese and Vietnamese medicine, and their meat is sold as a high-priced delicacy. As a result, pangolins are listed as critically endangered and anyone who trades or consumes them is breaking the law. This body of work exposes the trade, while exploring aspects of illegality and celebrating the people who are trying to save these animals”. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Sony World Photography Awards 2020)

Alexis kneels with his baby at a protest in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in Dakar, Senegal on June 9, 2020. (Photo by John Wessels/AFP Photo)

LGBT activists take part in a “Rave Pride” demanding state support for the local LGBTQ outside Ukrainian President's office in Kyiv, Ukraine on July 30, 2021. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

The “voodoo” wrestler known as Panthère utters incantations above the alter of his shrine in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on July 27, 2023. In the capital of DR Congo, dozens of men and women – including former wrestlers – practice “voodoo wrestling”, using traditional fetishes and animals. Fights are organised in some of the city's poorest and most densely populated districts. (Photo by Alexis Huguet/AFP Photo)

People run as Haiti's Senator Jean Marie Ralph Fethiere (PHTK) fires a gun in the air, injuring Chery Dieu-Nalio, a photographer for Associated Press, while facing opposition supporters in the parking lot of the Haitian Parliament and Senate, as the government attempted to confirm the appointment of nominated Prime Minister Fritz William Michel, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on September 23, 2019. (Photo by Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters)

Syrian boys play with plastic guns on the first day of the Muslim religious festival of Eid al-Adha in al-Dana in Syria's rebel-controlled Idlib region, near the border with Turkey, on August 11, 2019. Muslims across the world are celebrating the first day of the Feast of Sacrifice, which marks the end of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and commemorates prophet Abraham's sacrifice of a lamb after God spared Ishmael, his son. (Photo by Aaref Watad/AFP Photo)

A life-size replica of a Diplodocus dinosaur watches people coming out of the subway in the city center of Bochum, Germany, Monday, August 12, 2019. The exhibition, featuring models of 33 dinosaurs all around the city center, is in Bochum due to the discovery of an 316 million years old dinosaur track found in a stone pit in the city six years ago. (Photo by Martin Meissner/AP Photo)

Young Slovaks dressed in traditional costumes throw a bucket of water at a girl as part of Easter celebrations in the village of Trencianska Tepla, Slovakia, April 9, 2012. Slovakia's men splash women with water to symbolize youth, strength and beauty for the upcoming spring season. (Photo by Samuel Kubani/AFP)