People and Nature category winner: Why did the sloth cross the road? by Andrew Whitworth (Osa Conservation and University of Glasgow), taken in Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. “I was driving out from the Osa Peninsula, located on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica on a dark, stormy day. This female three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) had luckily just about made it across the road, and the drivers of the Toyota on this occasion had spotted her in good time”. (Photo by Andrew Whitworth/2019 British Ecological Society Photography Competition)

A woman poses for a picture during Lunar New Year's Eve on Yaowarat Road in Bangkok's Chinatown, Thailand, February 9, 2024. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

A photo made avialable on 05 August 2015 shows an Indian woman collecting drinking water from a water pump in the submerged village of Sreerampur, some 150 kilometers north of Calcutta, India, on 04 August 2015. At least 215 people have died in floods and a landslide following monsoon rains in India over the past week, 83 deaths were reported from the western state of Gujarat and 69 from eastern West Bengal. The worst-affected states were West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan, the Home Ministry said. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA)

Maja, a 40-year-old elephant, extends her trunk into a bakery as a customer buys a newspaper while Maja took a stroll through the neighborhood with her minders from a nearby circus on July 1, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Alligators and an egret stand on the banks of the Bento Gomes river next to the Transpantaneira road at the Pantanal wetlands near Pocone, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, Monday, September 14, 2020. A vast swath of the vital wetlands is burning in Brazil, sweeping across several national parks and obscuring the sun behind dense smoke. (Photo by Andre Penner/AP Photo)

Devotees wearing full body costumes to resemble Hindu monkey god – lord Hanuman take part in a procession in Amritsar on February 13, 2023. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

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)

A person makes faces as they march in the Societe de Sainte Anne parade during Mardi Gras on Tuesday, March 1, 2022, in New Orleans. (Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP Photo)