One hundred and sixty nations. Sixteen thousand entries. Six winners.

In their thousands, professionals, amateurs and children submitted pictures to the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Photography Competition.

The six winners won a dream trip to New York to pick up their awards and Earth Report traveled with them, highlighting the remarkable images they produced and the stories behind them.

Picture stories

At the Rio Earth Summit in 1993, UNEP teamed up with Canon to launch a worldwide photo competition on the environment. The year 2000 saw the launch of the third such competition.

But why a photography competition? One of the strengths of photography is its ability to 'reflect' and 'document' the world at a particular time. But a photograph is more than just the elements in the image. Like a book, each image can be read - raising questions and revealing deeper meanings - but, unlike a book, a photograph tells its story visually, transcending all linguistic divides.

With this in mind, the competition's entrants, representing just about every nation in the world, used the universal language of the photograph to tell their unique stories about man and the environment.

People and our planet

Back in New York, Earth Report caught up with some of the winners.

Brazilian photographer Luis Veiga arrived early so that he could photograph demonstrators outside the UN's Millennial Summit - a far cry from the images he entered for the competition which captured children playing along the coast of Marinyell, Brazil - an area of relatively well preserved swamps, where small communities of fishermen live.

In another photograph by Miriam Koehler, winner of the Junior Gold award, a plastic red turtle floats in a pond. Miriam's concern is that 'real live turtles' are getting harder and harder to find in nature - hunted to extinction, mostly illegally, for their meat and for their ornamentation.

Another issue close to hearts of many of the photographers was the effects of consumerism on the environment.

In the photograph 'Unnatural Luxury', a swimmer idly floats in a sumptuous patio pool seemingly unaware of the polluted bay and shanty town he overlooks. The judges felt that Stephen Ferry had encapsulated man's real problem with the environment - the aspiration to a luxurious lifestyle that the world can't sustain.

Another photograph makes the same point - this time using humour. Here a bicycle, as if propped against a tree, lies at the bottom of a canal - another indictment of our 'throw-away' culture. Ironically, it is a bicycle, a symbol of environmentally-friendly transport, that has been carelessly tossed aside - perhaps a metaphor for man's disregard of sustainable living.

Focus on your world

What makes UNEP's photography competition special is that it is open to anyone, regardless of age, sex, religion and nationality. Across the world, professional and amateur photographers enter their unique images - capturing the diversity of the environment and the people of our planet.

To see all this year's competition finalists, visit OneWorld.net's online exhibition of all the winning photographs.