UPY 2025

UPY  Save our Seas Foundation Marine Conservation - Highly Commended
'Ganvié'
Pavlos Evangelidis

This aerial shot shows just part of Ganvié, a floating village in Benin originally built in the 17th century by communities looking to hide from slave traders. Now counting about 30,000 inhabitants, it is probably the largest such village in the whole of Africa. The houses are built on wooden stills and any sign of land is brought in by the individuals. Fishing here is the main economic activity for the community, all for subsistence and small-scale trade at the nearby markets. The environment is a dynamic, fragile balance between saltwater and freshwater and efforts are ongoing to conserve it and help mitigate the human impact.

Judge's comment: The key words here are subsistence and small-scale trade. 30,000 people scraping by yet having a huge impact on the local environment by both extracting the contents and then presumably depositing on them again. I can only hope the efforts to conserve yet mitigate succeed.
Peter Rowlands