REDISCOVER Nature — Photo competition 2020

The European Environment Agency is inviting you to reconnect with nature and capture all its wonders on camera. So grab your cameras and go for a hike on a local trail or relax in your garden and observe the tree leaves bending or the fluffy clouds floating in the sky. Be curious and discover the parts of nature you have never noticed before, both small and large.

Every year, the EEA organises a photo competition to raise awareness about an environmental theme and invites Europeans to share their takes on it. This year’s competition ‘REDISCOVER Nature’ is a call for all of us to look around us and let ourselves be amazed by nature.

Submissions closed on 30 September 2020 and all the competition winners, including the winner of the Public Choice Award, were announced on 16 November 2020.

Read the winner announcement

View the competition finalists' gallery on Flickr

Additional information on the topics covered by ‘REDISCOVER Nature’ can be found on the following EEA pages and related publications:

• Biodiversity – Ecosystems
• Land Use
• Soil
• Water and marine environment

Eligibility criteria

Citizens of the following countries are eligible to enter the competition: EU 27 Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey; under the stabilisation and association agreements: North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo*, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

United Kingdom citizens: Please be aware that after the entry into force of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement on 1 February 2020 and in particular Articles 127(6), 137 and 138, UK citizens are eligible to participate in this competition.

The photos must be taken in the countries mentioned above.

All participants must be 18 or older.

You must have full copyrights to the submitted material. By submitting an entry, you will be presumed to have agreed to accept the Competition rules and the Terms and Conditions. One entrant may submit maximum 5 entries in total in the competition. As each entry will be handled separately, you need to fill out the online submission form for each entry if you chose to submit more than one entry.

*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.

Prizes

The winners in each category (Close-ups of nature, Nature on my doorstep, Zoom out on nature) will be awarded a cash prize of EUR 1000, while EUR 500 is on offer for both the Public Choice Award and the Youth Prize.

The Youth Prize will be awarded to the winning entry, selected among those submitted by persons aged between 18 and 24 (born between calendar years 1996-2002, both included) to any of the three competition categories.

All finalists will be put forward for the Public Choice Award and may also feature in future digital and print material from the EEA and its European partners.

The copyright of the materials submitted for this competition remains with the respective participants. However, each entrant grants the EEA and its partners the right to use the submitted materials in its environmental communication, crediting the copyright owners.

Selection process

The EEA will appoint a pre-selection committee consisting of communication and environment experts that will select 30-50 finalists. These will then be submitted to an external jury to be composed of environmental communication experts from across Europe, who will determine the winners, with the exception of the Public Choice Award.

For the Public Choice Award, the finalist entries put forward by the pre-selection committee will be open to a public vote from 19 October to 2 November 2020.

The winners will be notified by email and the official announcement of the winners will follow on the 16 November 2020.