Mohamad Reza Masoumi from Iran bags 13th Greenstorm photography award

Hadi Dehghanpour, also from Iran, was chosen as the second runner-up for the award, the Foundation said.During the award ceremony, Thiruvananthapuram MP and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor said environmental degradation affects everyone despite their political or ideological affiliations.They have cross-sectoral implications, public health dimensions, impact on the economy and the workforce of todays India.

Mohamad Reza Masoumi from Iran has won the 13th edition of the prestigious Greenstorm Global Photography Award, which is organised in association with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Greenstorm Global Photography Award is organised by Greenstorm Foundation every year and the theme for this year's festival was 'Restore Green Lineage' based on the UNEP theme for 2021 World Environment Day -- Ecosystem Restoration.

The entry by Masoumi, hailing from Iran's capital Tehran, was chosen through a public poll in which thousands of photography enthusiasts and laypeople from all over the world participated, the organisers said.

''Masoumi's winning entry depicts a breathtaking sight of a man-made forest in Iran spreading through the region of Khalkhal. It exhibits a remarkable human attempt to restore the balance of nature by revitalising the environment,'' Greenstorm Foundation said in a release.

This year's award saw a whopping 3,519 entries submitted by photographers from 42 countries, including the US, England, Canada, Algeria, Brazil, Iran, Malaysia, South Korea, Morocco and Vietnam, it said.

The first runner-up for the award is Jophel Botero Ybiosa from the Philippines. ''His thoughtful composition made in Quezon City has a dominant shadow of a child holding a pot falling upon a real pot of plant. Hadi Dehghanpour, also from Iran, was chosen as the second runner-up for the award,'' the Foundation said.

During the award ceremony, Thiruvananthapuram MP and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor said environmental degradation affects everyone despite their political or ideological affiliations.

''They have cross-sectoral implications, public health dimensions, impact on the economy and the workforce of today’s India. Solving this crisis may well prove to be the single most important moonshot of our generation,'' Tharoor said.

The festival featured 25 photographs curated by an eminent jury comprising jury chair Prathap Suthan from New Delhi, Mumbai-based wildlife photographer Aishwarya Sridhar and landscape architect Michael Little from Bengaluru.

The festival was open for public voting till December 15 and the winners were awarded cash prizes worth Rs 1 lakh.

Greenstorm Foundation is a not-for-profit public trust formed to impact appropriate behavioural changes among people through the power of creativity.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)