Call for Proposals: Photographs covering Environmental Issues and Emergencies

UNESCO is looking for photographs illustrating the current global environmental crises, their impact, and effects on people’s lives. Photographs to be considered include those depicting threats to biodiversity, animals, and populations or those connected to investigating environmental crimes. Examples of situations include:

• Illegal mining, pollution, poaching, animal trafficking, deforestation.
• Disasters linked to climate change and extreme weather events: heatwaves, fires, droughts, typhoons, hurricanes, and other natural disasters,
• Food and water insecurity and effects on populations, for example: mass displacement.
• As the United Nations agency with a specific mandate to promote “the free flow of ideas by word and image”, UNESCO carried out a range of activities to foster freedom of expression and its corollary of press freedom. In this context, it also seeks to raise awareness about the challenges faced by journalists in the exercise of their work. As such, photographs depicting the safety risks that photojournalists face while reporting this issue will also be considered.

Criteria

• They encourage photos from female journalists of different ethnicities, ages and physical abilities.
• Regional diversity will be considered in the selection of the photos. All photos should comply with high ethical standards and treat all subjects with respect and dignity.
• The selected photographs will help to raise awareness on the work on environmental journalists and the importance of journalism and freedom of expression in the context of the current global environmental crisis. The photographs will be used in UNESCO’s publications, awareness raising campaigns digital and print, and global events and conferences linked to the topic, specially the upcoming World Press Freedom Day Global Conference “A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the face of the environmental crisis” to be held in Santiago, Chile on 2-4 May 2024.
• The photographs will be chosen for their artistic, creative and original content. UNESCO will establish a contract with the photographers and purchase the selected photographs, whereby non-exclusive rights for the selected photographs will be granted to UNESCO.
• As per the Organization’s rules and regulations, the photographer will need to warrant that the work made is created by him/her; that him/her is the sole and unrestricted owner of the exclusive rights in the works, free from encumbrances, and that no third party is entitled to any intellectual property rights with regard to the work. The Contractor will also need to ensure that no third-party rights were infringed in the making of the work.

For more information, visit UNESCO.