Nature’s Best - Benjamin Mkapa Awards 2022
We were very honoured to be Highly Commended in the 2022 edition of the Benjamin Mkapa African Wildlife Photo Awards in both the video and photo competitions.
This yearly competition is run by Nature’s Best Photography together with the African Wildlife Foundation and is named for H.E. Benjamin Mkapa (1938-2020) who was the third president of Tanzania and a staunch advocate of conservation in East Africa.
The award ceremony was held this year at the Museum of Natural History in Nairobi, Kenya with a keynote address from the US Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman.
The awarded video was made to celebrate and showcase Africa following the lifting of the UK’s travel restrictions and the removal of Kenya from the Red List in August 2021.
The Masai Mara in Kenya is one of the last great wild sanctuaries on earth. Open to the Serengeti in the south, these are the plains on which one of the largest, most recognisable of great wildlife migrations takes place.
The Conservancies of the Masai Mara are priceless paradises that exist to expand and protect this untamed wilderness in the heart of Africa. These wild sanctuaries do not exist in a vacuum. They cannot exist without buy-in from the local communities and they will not exist without the essential funding that tourism brings. Tourism that was all but wiped out by travel restrictions and Red-Lists in 2021.
Laura’s portrait of Kweli and her three cubs:
Cheetah cubs need to learn survival skills, and they will mimic their mother's behavior to do so. These big cats face many challenges in the wild, particularly competition from other predators. A mother cheetah, alert to lion activity in the area, climbed a massive termite mound for the best vantage point. Her three cubs, spread out like a fan, moved with their mom's movements, watchful and alert. For this portrait, the shaded escarpment, blue in the early morning light, added a beautiful background to the family's warm sunlit coats.
For more information on the Benjamin Mkapa Awards please visit the links below.
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Nature’s Best Photography: https://naturesbestphotography.org
2022 Mkapa Awards Finalists: https://express.adobe.com/page/uyNeiUGT3vUNE/
African Wildlife Foundation: https://www.awf.org/pressroom/awf-and-natures-best-photography-announce-2022-winners-benjamin-mkapa-african-wildlife