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Ryan Stalker’s “Ocean Drifter” is the photograph that won the British Wildlife Photography Award 2024. It depicts the life below the water line of molluscs native to the American tropics that drifted to Britain across the Atlantic Ocean, anchored to a punctured football ball. If one of the most important nature photography prizes is dedicated to this subject – the impact on environmental ecosystems of marine litter – it means that the conditions of compromise are high and the emergency is absolute. It is assumed that there is a sort of sixth continent of waste floating in the ocean, while the various problems – spills, microplastic pollution and illegal fishing – threaten to compromise the delicate environmental balance of the sea forever.

CREDITs

© Ocean drifter, Ryan Stalker