The presentation of the award at the Nature Talks Photo Festival in the Netherlands marked the end of a competition at which over 14,000 images were submitted by photographers from 73 different countries. Entries were divided into 11 categories including Birds, Mammals, Plants and mushrooms, Landscapes, Underwater and Man and Nature. Category winners were then pitted against each other to decide the Grand Prize: the prestigious title of Nature Photographer Of The Year.

A team of Japanese scientists have found 143 new geoglyphs in the Nazca Pampa region, Peru. The Nazca Geoglyphs (also known as Nazca Lines) are a group of very large glyphs impressed into the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. These depict a variety of animals, people, plants, among other things. The glyphs date back to sometime between 500BC and 500AD and are a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.