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)

“Zeybeks”. That's Dance, Sunward and Zeybeks. (Photo by Hasan Baglar/2014 Sony World Photography Awards)

Wildlife category, open shortlist. “Buffaloes and stars”. This picture, taken at Zimanga game reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, used an in-camera multiple exposure, with the first lit for the buffaloes and the second focused on the stars. (Photo and caption by Andreas Hemb/2017 Sony World Photography Awards)

Annual celebration of Dinagyang festival of Iloilo, Philippines. (Photo by Raniel Jose Castañeda/Sony World Photography Awards)

Jewelmer is the only pearl producer in the world that has successfully produced pearls with a rich, natural golden color. Through decades of research and biotechnology, Jewelmer was able to perfect the breeding process that produces gold-lipped Pinctada maxima pearl oysters capable of growing large, lustrous, golden pearls. This deep, rich color can only be found in South Sea pearls produced in the Philippines.

Inmates sleep on the steps of a ladder inside the Quezon City jail at night in Manila in this picture taken on July 21, 2016. There are 3,800 inmates at the jail, which was built six decades ago to house 800, and they engage in a relentless contest for space. Men take turns to sleep on the cracked cement floor of an open-air basketball court, the steps of staircases, underneath beds and hammocks made out of old blankets. (Photo by Noel Celis/AFP Photo)

Filipino typhoon victims walk through heavy mud in the typhoon hit town of Taft, Samar island, Philippines, 08 December 2014. Typhoon Hagupit weakened into a tropical storm as it moved towards the Philippine capital after killing at least 27 people and displacing more than one million people in the eastern and central provinces. Hagupit slammed into the country's eastern coast on 06 December evening, bringing heavy rains and gale-force winds that flattened homes, ripped off roofs, and knocked out power and communications. (Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA)

A worker inspects unfinished firecrackers as they make pyrotechnics at a makeshift factory in Bocaue town, Bulacan province, north of Manila December 27, 2014. Firecracker makers in Bulacan province, the pyrotechnic capital of the Philippines, are in haste to meet the demands for the coming New Year revelry. (Photo by Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)