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Dedicated to the Arctic and chaired by climatologist Jean Jouzel and under the patronage of Minister Ségolène Royal, French Ambassador for the Arctic and Antarctic Poles, the 9th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award was awarded to Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir Van Lohuizen (NOOR).

Through their unprecedented photographic investigation ”Arctic: New Frontier”, Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen explored, over more than 15,000 kilometers, the impact of climate change on this territory and its consequences for the rest of the world.

For the first time, two photojournalists simultaneously covered, one following the route of Russian seaports, and another one following the Northwest Passage, the irreversible changes underwent by the Arctic to witness the impact of melting ice and permafrost.

”The photographs of Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen (…) make us discover the Arctic of today through landscapes and wildlife attracting more and more tourists, populations exposed to extreme climate conditions and engaged in the exploitation of mineral resources such as nickel, and increasingly in the one of gas, oil and coal. The least we could say is that the environment protection of the environment doesn’t seem to be at the center of their activities.” – Jean Jouzel, winner of the 2012 Vetlesen Award and co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Award as Director of the IPCC.

Kadir van Lohuizen started his journey on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard Archipelago. He followed the Northwest Passage which became, with ice melting, the shortest route between Europe and Asia. In Greenland, he met scientists who recently discovered that frozen rivers were pushing the ice cap to the ocean for 15 cm per day, directly contributing to rising waters on the planet. At the south of Cornwallis Island, off Canada, he lived in the small community of Resolute, which recently became home to a training center for the Canadian Armed Forces because of the increasing openness of the Arctic. Then Kadir van Lohuizen went to Kivalina, an aboriginal village on the northern tip of Alaska, which, according to current forecasts, will disappear underwater by 2025.

Tourism, militarisation, exploitation of gas and mineral resources, and opening of trade roads: the Arctic becomes today the battleground among countries and multinational corporations for the chaotic conquest of these strategic zones resurging in the people’s history by the effect of global warming. The images of Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen’s ”Arctic: New Frontier” are an alarming testimony to the rapidity of the region’s transformation and the upheavals taking place on a global scale.