Brian Skerry can be called many things – explorer, journalist, conservation advocate – but he is first and foremost a photographer. His journeys to capture amazing underwater photographs have taken him across the world’s oceans. Photo: This Bahamian oceanic whitetip shark, known for the distinctive coloring on its white-tipped, rounded extremities, is part of a globally threatened species due to overfishing demands, primarily for its fins. (Photo by Brian Skerry)

Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)

A worker covers mounds of rice with a giant hat-shaped bamboo cone in a field in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh on September 21, 2023 after they have been dried in the scoring sun. (Photo by Joy Saha/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

British underwater photographer of the year – winner. “Love Birds” by Grant Thomas (UK). Location: Luss Pier, Loch Lomond, Scotland. Thomas’s initial idea was to frame a split shot of one swan feeding below the surface of the water but when he noticed how comfortable they were around him he was confident, with some patience, he could get that magical shot of the two. (Photo by Grant Thomas/UPY 2018)

Jellyfish with a juvenile imperial blackfish (Schedophilus ovalis) in Castellammare di Stabia, Naples, Italy, winter 2023. (Photo by Marco Gargiulo/Media Drum Images)

Participants in costumes pose before a Halloween parade in Kawasaki, south of Tokyo, Japan on October 28, 2018. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

The pedestrian zone on the banks of the “Parco della Pace” at Lake Maggiore is flooded due to flooding, on Thursday, October 24, 2019 in Locarno, Switzerland. (Photo by Samuel Golay/Ti-Press/Keystoen)

A man watches the huge waves which brakes at the Paseo Nuevo's promenade in San Sebastian, Basque Country, Spain on 11 January 2016 where the wind has reached to 90 km/h and have been registred waves of eight kilometres due to the bad weather. (Photo by Juan Herrero/EPA)