Wildlife/Animals nominee

The midnight sun shone on this young animal, waving a magical wand over the moment. It is my hope that these scenes won't disappear into memories of the past, but can be witnessed time and again in the future.
Polar bears have become a symbol of climate change. We found this bear at 81 degree north in the Barents Sea, on the edge of the sea-ice. Polar bears depend on fattening prey that lives on the ice, like bearded or ringed seal. But the melting ice-caps destroy the ice-bridges back to dry-land. Thus, the polar bears have to make a choice each year: to follow the ice and get fed but left drifting at sea with vast distances to swim back to shore, or to forgo the diet they need to best survive the winter and stay on solid land. As their livelihood is pitched against high odds, it is even more unsettling to realise how many bears are legally killed each year, a practice scientists found unsustainable.

Irene Amiet is a nature photographer, conservationist and freelance writer from Basel, Switzerland. Having lived and worked on three different continents, her work has been influenced by different cultures and people’s co-existence with nature. Irene started her artistic career after spending time as a Field Rep for Rainforest Concern and Global Vision in Panama and South Africa where she was involved in anti-poaching initiatives, predator density research and community projects. In Texas, Irene was a long-term contributor to Coast Monthly Magazine and wrote a blog on nature and conservation for the Galveston Daily News. Irene started her much-commended study of avian motion and ballet, in stillness and flight, in the theatre of the natural seagrass beds of the Gulf Coast, often using a slow-shutter technique to paint with light.
With help of her photography, Irene has supported many conservation organisations over the years and contributed to initiatives such as the Texas Coastal Heritage Preserves, the New Big Five, the Endangered Wildlife Trust and most recently, the Lancashire Wildlife Trust with her work depicting owls and stags in the North of England, her home.