The photo competition “Natura 2000 – Latvia's Great Natural Places”, held to mark twenty years since the establishment of Natura 2000 sites in Latvia, has come to a close. A total of 382 photographs were submitted, each taken in one of Latvia's specially protected nature areas of European importance. Some of the photographs will be used in a unique book-magazine and in a calendar for 2025.

All the photographs submitted to the competition can be viewed on the tiekamiesdaba.lv website in the section “Campaign Natura 2000 – Latvia's Great Natural Places”. The best photographs in the competition were works by three authors: Andžela Daļecka's sunrise over Liepājas ezers, Vladislavs Kundziņš's view from Sarkaņkalns near Adamovas ezers and Toms Artūrs Štāls's captured moment in the Dviete floodplain pastures. The authors of these three photographs will each receive a cash prize of 50 euros.

More than 80 of the finest photographs will also be used to create a unique Natura 2000 book-magazine for the representational needs of the country's highest institutions, as well as for the Nature Conservation Agency's 2025 wall calendar. All photographers whose work has been selected for the book-magazine will receive a copy of the publication by post.

To mark the 20th anniversary of Latvia joining Natura 2000, the European Union's network of specially protected nature areas, this year the association Integrity projects group, in cooperation with the Nature Conservation Agency, organised the public engagement campaign “Natura 2000 – Latvia's Great Natural Places”. The campaign invited everyone to read the descriptions of Latvia's great natural places on the tiekamiesdaba.lv website and to visit them in person, capturing the moment in photographs. The photo competition ran from May to September, and the entries were assessed by a professional jury.

In implementing the European Union Habitats Directive, the creation of the Natura 2000 network of sites in Latvia 20 years ago played a decisive role in conserving Latvia's natural environment and its diversity. Membership of the European network of protected areas has made it possible to attract funding from the European Commission's environment and climate programmes to restore and conserve natural assets such as biologically valuable grasslands, fast-flowing river stretches, wetlands, floodplains and forests. Thanks to the international funding secured, the largest natural-asset inventory project in the country's history was carried out – “Dabas skaitīšana” (the Nature Census), which brought the challenges of protecting natural assets to the fore. The nature tourism infrastructure and the five nature education centres created by the Nature Conservation Agency (in Salacgrīva, Sigulda, Ķemeri, Šlītere and Lipuški by Rāznas ezers), meanwhile, foster public understanding of nature and the importance of protecting it.

The photo competition is organised by the association “Integrity projects group” under the project “Raising awareness of the Natura 2000 network of protected areas of European importance” (project registration No. 1-08/86/2023).