Vital Impacts Fellowships and Mentorship 2026: Meet the Awarded Photographers

For the third year in a row, Vital Impacts awarded seven environmental photography fellowships totalling $50,000, along with eleven mentorships, to photographers narrating the complex relationship between humanity and the planet, chosen among 526 submissions across 86 countries. Championing artists whose work conveys empathy and interconnection, and sheds light on our shared responsibility toward ecosystems, Vital Impacts aims to support the next generation of storytellers, as founder Ami Vitale underlined. “We aspire to create opportunities for these emerging voices to explore complex environmental issues with originality and nuance at this critical moment.”

Through one-on-one sessions with established photographers, editors, and conservationists, the eleven photographers who received year-long mentorships will have the opportunity to tell stories that celebrate both people and the planet.

“Each of these artists moves between rigorous documentary photography and artistic exploration, always with a deep ethic of care,” said Alessia Glaviano, Head of Global PhotoVogue and Director of the PhotoVogue Festival, and a member of the judging panel.

This year, the jury also included Azu Nwagbogu, Founder and Director of the African Artists’ Foundation and Lagos Photo Festival; Evgenia Arbugaeva, National Geographic Storytelling Fellow and Academy Award nominee; Kathy Moran, Deputy Director of Photography at National Geographic; and Pat Kane, Vital Impacts Environmental Jane Goodall Fellowship winner.

A decade-long investigation into deforestation and Indigenous resilience in the Brazilian Amazon.

ATALAIA DO NORTE, AUGUST, 2021: Kanamari children, originally from various villages in the Vale do Javari indigenous territory, find themselves stranded in a makeshift camp on the banks of the Javari River in Atalaia do Norte.Tommaso Protti

A project celebrating the Tūhoe people’s revolutionary model of stewardship which recognises the land as a living ancestor.

Children from the Teepa family drive the younger siblings home, after a swim in the Ōhinemataroa (Whakatane) River, in Ruatoki, New Zealand. Tūhoe children are taught independence and to care for other family members.TATSIANA CHYPSANAVA

A project showing how the ancestral knowledge and collective innovation of desert communities are revitalising the landscapes.

A goat and its lamb in the midst of a developing sandstorm, "El Ghbar," as it sweeps over a family tent settlement in the middle of the steppe.Cléa T. Rekhou

A denunciation of the human and ecological toll of coal mining in India

October 05, 2021: Beauty Devi (34) sits in her village in the evening after burning coal. Many abandoned mines with leftover coal were left unsealed and unsafe.Supratim Bhattacharjee

In River Claure’s work totora reed boats become symbols of memory and resistance amid the
disappearance of Andean waters.

Doña Flora lies down on her granddaughter's lap.River Claure

A projects documenting women of the Blackfeet Nation restoring sacred sweetgrass and preserving its teachings for future generations.

A young Blackfeet girl smells freshly harvested sweetgrass, connecting with a plant now under threat from drought and overgrazing.Whitney Snow

An exploration of rural Galicia, where communities face drought, wildfire, and depopulation while holding on to memory and place.

Nacho is 40 years old and originally from Zaragoza, a city almost 1,000 kilometers away from Galicia. After a turbulent youth, he decided to isolate himself in the Galician mountains to live a life less dependent on society. Today, he cares for his herd of goats, with whom he shares a very special bond: he hugs them, talks to them, and cares for them as if they were his children. Every morning, he takes them to the mountains early so they can graze, and he doesn’t return home until nightfall. In these animals, he seems to have found the meaning of his existence. Nacho lives in an old, occupied stone house without electricity. His diet consists of vegetables and the milk his goats produce. As he himself says, his dream would be to eat like the goats, feeding on the herbs of the mountains. Nacho leads a hermit-like life, finding in this self-imposed exclusion from normalized society a true sense of freedom.May 24th, 2024. VIlar, Galicia.Carlos Folgoso Sueiro

Bade Fuwa, Nigeria

I captured a hand holding a dead bird found in the landscape in Luben, Germany, 2025. The image speaks to the disposability - how lives, objects, and beings are often abandoned once they no longer serve a purpose. IN preserving the bird within the frame, I wanted to give the bird a home and a reason to be remembered forever. The photograph becomes a gesture of care, allowing it to be seen, remembered, and held beyond its moment of death.Bade Fuwa

Selene Magnolia Gatti, Italy-Germany

May 2023, Lugo, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Pigs that survived in a pigfactory farm that has been severely affected by the floods. Canals and rivers in the area have overflown after heavy rains and extreme weather conditions. The floods came after years of severe drought in the region, which has compacted the soil, reducing its ability to absorb rainfall.Factory farms can create a biological health risk also in case of weather related catastrophes. Flooded factory farms contributed to severe water contamination with pollutants and wastewater.SELENE MAGNOLIA GATTI

Afzal Adeeb Khan, India

Children of the Diyara river island make their own joy, swinging on makeshift swings hung from trees.fzal Adeeb Khan

Isaac Nico, India

A Tamil Muslim fisherman stands on the coast of Mannar. As a member of a community that has historically been denied land rights, his identity is a symbol of resilience in the face of systemic marginalization, a vulnerability now compounded by the ecological crisis of coastal erosion and dwindling fish stocks that threaten his only source of livelihood.Isaac Nico

Uma Nielsen, Argentina

Humberto Carrillo guía sus llamas por la Laguna Guayatayoc, sin agua. En Alfarcito la cría de llamas sostiene la economía familiar y comunitaria. Las familias practican un pastoreo trashumante que articula distintos humedales distribuidos por el territorio comunal, lugares que concentran las principales pasturas. Laguna de Guayatayoc un 7 de Julio de 2025.Uma Nielsen

Ana Palacios, Spain

Five day old Armonia, at the Gaia sanctuary, was rescued from being sent to the slaughterhouse; she has a fractured tibia and her owners couldn’t take care of a sick sheep. As of October 2020, Gaia has 169 sheep and goats out of a total 534 so-called farm animals. All of them were rescued after being abandoned or seized by the police. Each animal has a name and a sponsor who pays for their food and veterinary expenses. These sanctuaries do not receive any public funds and are financed exclusively through donation made by private donors. Gaia currently has two thousand members, or sponsors, who contribute the money necessary to cover the sanctuary’s overhead expenses, which amount to about €30,000 a month. She will remain on the estate until she dies a natural death like the rest of the animals at this sanctuary.ANA PALACIOS

Viktoria Pezzei, Germany

Students Michelle Korn and Johan Bolle note the direction of the bearing of a transmitted bat at specific time intervals. Triangulation requires taking bearings from different locations around a given roost at the same time of day.Viktoria Pezzei

Maria José Rojas, Colombia

Amidst play and laughter, Gunseya squeezed into this hollow of a large rock in the Don Diego River, perfectly tailored to her size.Maria José Rojas

Roun Ry, Cambodia

A fisherman show a handful of snails [sea snails] caught in Trapeang Sangkae, fishing community. Kampot, Cambodia 2023Roun Ry

Jalal Shamsazaran, Iran

A Young boy is cleaning the water reserves with his friends in their village for a water tank on July 27, 2018, in Dashtyari, Baluchestan, Iran. The reserve must be clean. Because of drought, there is no drinking water for people and livestock in the village. Usually every two weeks water tanks come from far place and bring drinking water to the village and fill the water reserves. With the onset of drought, most of the villages in this region have to buy water, which imposes an additional cost on their lives. The water reserves do not have roofs and water gets polluted. Therefore, people must boil them before drinking. The drought of recent years has limited the people of this region's access to safe and sanitary drinking water.Jalal Shamsazaran

Michaela Vatcheva, Bulgaria

Lyba Duranovic checks to see if the sterlet he caught accidentally in his net overnight is still alive in Novi Sip, Serbia, on Friday, October 25, 2024. Sterlets are the smallest of the four native sturgeon species inhabiting the Danube and the last one to still inhabit the Middle and Upper Danube River because it doesn’t migrate to the Black Sea. Its population has dropped significantly, mainly due to the degradation of main habitats, spawning and foraging grounds.Michaela Vatcheva