Programs
For the seventh consecutive year, the International Photo Competition is organised in cooperation with the Tropentag conference.
The topic of this year's International Photo Competition addresses one of the core concerns of the organisers:
- To restore and improve degraded land through holistic landscape management.
The idea of the photo competition is to find photographs and photo stories that document inspiring, promising and emotionally engaging approaches to landscape restoration and sustainable land management. In this way, successful initiatives from around the world can be collected, shared and made more widely known.
As in previous years, the competition is organised in two categories:
- Best Single Picture
- Best Photo Story (max. 10 photos)
For submitting your contributions, the following submission form has to be completed and sent together with the photos to fotocontest@lets-plant.org:
The submission form contains further guidelines, including the provision of an informative title and a short background description explaining the context and relevance of the photo or photo story.
A jury consisting of members of Let’s Plant e.V., representatives of Tropentag 2026 and, where appropriate, invited experts will review the submissions and prepare a ranking list. Depending on the number and quality of the entries, one, two or three winners may be selected in each category.
The winning entries will be presented during Tropentag 2026 and may subsequently be exhibited on the websites of Tropentag and Let’s Plant e.V., as well as in physical and virtual exhibitions and other non-commercial outreach activities. Winners will also receive a small gift.
As a special feature, Let’s Plant e.V. expresses its willingness to select among all winning contributions – if suitable proposals are submitted – a local project linked to one of the entries that can be supported with up to €1,500 over one year. To be eligible for this support, submissions should include an additional one-page project outline.
By submitting their contributions, participants grant Let’s Plant e.V. a non-exclusive right to use the submitted photographs and accompanying texts for non-commercial purposes, including exhibitions, publications and online presentations, while always acknowledging and crediting the author and copyright holder.
In cooperation with suitable partners, Let’s Plant e.V. aims to organise publicly accessible exhibitions of the best-ranked contributions.
Deadline for the submission of your photos is August 8, 2026.
Participation in Tropentag 2026 is not required.
The Results of the Photo Competition 2025
In September 2025 the conference took place on the campus of the University of Bonn, Germany. During the conference we had the chance to exhibit the winning photos of the previous years!
Also in 2025 many great photos had been submitted. We thank all participant for their contributions! The results are:
Opportunity crops – photo stories:
1nd place: Anthony Denayer See photo.
2nd place: Cécile Poitevin See photo.
3rd place: Yash Srivastava See photo.
Landscape restoration – photo stories:
1st place: Anthony Denayer See photos.
2nd place: Ana Willmann See photos.
3rd place: Waqar Ul Hassan Tareen See photos.
Landscape restoration – single photos:
1st place: Husnul Khotimah See photos.
1st place: Mojtaba Nikzad See photos.
3rd place: Mojtaba Nikzad See photos.
The Results of the Photo Competition 2024
In September 2024 the conference took place on the campus of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna.. During the conference we had the chance to exhibit the winning photos of the previous years!
Also in 2023 many great photos had been submitted. We thank all participant for their contributions! The results are:
Category single photo:
1nd place: Naji sulaiman See photo.
2nd place: Farzin Nourisamani. See photo.
3rd place: Bonna Antoinette Tokou. See photo.
Category photo stories:
1st place: Mojtaba Nikzad. See photos.
2nd place: Paul Schmidt. See photos.
3rd place: Alexander Cano. See photos.
The Results of the Photo Competition 2023
In September 2023 the conference took place on the campus of the Humbold University in Berlin. During the conference we had the chance to exhibit the winning photos of the previous years!
Also in 2023 many great photos had been submitted. We thank all participant for their contributions! The results are:
Category single photo:
1nd place: Abdullah Thaseem Muhammed Shah. See photo.
2nd place: Lilli Scheiterle. See photo.
3rd place: Die-Yacine KA. See photo.
Category photo stories:
1st place: Kateryna Tuzhyk. See photos.
2nd place: Simon Lotz. See photos.
3rd place: Aung Zaw Oo. See photos.
The Results of the Photo Competition 2022
Already for the third time, Let's Plant e.V. has held a photo competition together with the Tropentag conference. Many interesting photos have been submitted. We thank all participant for their contributions! The results are:
Category single photo:
1st place: Chan Nandar. See photo.
2nd place: Marta Kifleab. See photo.
3rd place: Gabriella Troare. See photo.
Category photo stories:
1st place: Giovanna Chavez. See photos.
2nd place: Veronica Mwangi. See photos.
3rd place: Kataryna Tuzhyk. See photos.
3rd place: Lea-Sophie Hansen. See photos.
The winning photos of the 2022 photo competition as well as those of 2021 and 2020 will be exhibited in the cafeteria of the GIZ headquarters in Bonn during January and February 2023.
The Results of the Photo Competition 2021
Once again, many interesting photos were submitted as part of Tropentag 2021. We thank all participant for their fantastic contributions! Here are the results:
Category single photo:
1st place: Sarada Thapa. See photos.
2nd place: Toán Nguyen. See photos.
3rd place: Toán Nguyen. See photos.
Category photo stories:
1st place: Shibire Bekele. See photos.
2nd place: Giovanna Chavez. See photos.
2nd place: Inga Nienkerke. See photos.
Some of the winning photos were exhibited in the Botanical garden of the University of Bonn during the summer months of 2022.
The Results of the Photo Competition 2020
At Tropentag 2020, Let's Plant hosted this photo competition for the first time. Many interesting photos were submitted - from over 18 countries and 4 continents! The jury ranked them and the results were presented during Tropentag 2020. We thank all participant for their fantastic contributions! Here are the results:
Category single photo:
1st place: Rex Parro. See photos.
2nd place: Julian Neef. See photos.
3rd place: Sushma Banjara. See photos.
Category photo stories:
1st place: Jakob Scheler. See photos.
2nd place: Teresa Rojas. See photos.
3rd place: Elio Guarionex. See photos.
Some of the winner photos are exhibited in the framework of the project Zeitenwende in the Kottenforest (near Bonn). The exhibition can be reached by this route.
Companies and Organisations, which support this project:
Climate change is one of the biggest problems humanity will have to tackle in the coming years. One of the most appropriate measures to combat global warming is planting trees. Trees have the amazing ability to provide various ecosystem services - and for free! Among other things, they store large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, clean the air, have a cooling effect on their surroundings through their transpiration, have positive effects on wildlife and biodiversity and provide people with food and oxygen.
It's actually pretty easy, isn't it? You just have to plant more trees! Unfortunately, this awareness has not yet reached everyone. So we want to change that by raising awareness of the importance of planting and reforestation projects. We do this, for example, by convening discussion groups where people can come together and discuss things with one another, organize thematic film presentations, report on various projects such as our planting project in Ethiopia, in regional daily newspapers, at trade fairs and at presentations, carry out campaigns with schools and host an annual photo contest on improving degraded landscapes. Since these actions are often associated with financial outlay, every donation helps to carry the idea and awareness out into the world: Let's Plant!
Companies and Organisations, which support this project:
