Aldred, Saladino and brothers Rob and Tom Sears win James Cropper Wainwright Prizes

James Aldred, Dan Saladino and brothers Rob and Tom Sears have won this year’s James Cropper Wainwright Prizes. 

The winners were announced at a live ceremony on 7th September at the London Wetland Centre. Aldred triumphed in the nature category with Goshawk Summer: The Diary of an Extraordinary Season in the Forest (Elliott & Thompson) while Saladino scooped the conservation award with Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them (Jonathan Cape). Rob and Tom Stears took home the inaugural award for children’s writing on nature and conservation with The Biggest Footprint: Eight Billion Humans. One Clumsy Giant (Canongate). 

A £7,500 prize fund will be shared by the authors of the three winning books, with each receiving a specially commissioned original artwork by paper artist Helen Musselwhite. 

Now in its ninth year, the prize is awarded annually to the books which most successfully inspire readers to explore the outdoors and to nurture a respect for the natural world. 

Aldred, a wildlife cameraman who has collaborated with David Attenborough, won the nature prize for his acutely observed lockdown nature diary, Goshawk Summer. Commissioned to film the lives of a family of goshawks in the New Forest at the start of 2020, Aldred was granted permission to stay when lockdown struck, offering him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the ancient forest at an ‘extraordinary time’ — empty of people, but filled with new life.  

BBC Radio 4 "Food Programme" presenter Saladino’s was praised for his “highly original", radical and hopeful investigation into food biodiversity, Eating to Extinction, which is the result of 15 years of research. It explains why diversity matters for food security, our health, for local economies and for the future of the planet, and is described as "a rallying cry for reclaiming genetic biodiversity before it is too late”. 

Writer and illustrator duo Rob and Tom Sears use statistics to present the challenges of climate change in new light in The Biggest Footprint. By reimagining the whole of humanity as one massive giant, the pair take a revelatory look at the damage humanity has inflicted on the planet and how we might begin to rectify it, in an empowering story that will inspire younger readers to make the world a better place. 

Mark Cropper, chairman of headline sponsors, sustainable paper manufacturer James Cropper, said: “We would like to congratulate and thank all the shortlisted authors for everything that they are doing to educate and inspire us to create a better world. This year’s winners make some of the biggest issues the natural world faces today incredibly accessible, while conveying the beauty and power of nature, through such innovative and skilled writing. Telling stories through paper is something our business has done for nearly two centuries, and it is a joy to see all the authors doing that very thing in such a meaningful way, encouraging us all to embrace and protect what our environment has to offer.” 

The judging panel, made up of TV presenters Ray Mears, Charlotte Smith and Gemma Hunt, also highly commended A World in the Making by Dr Thomas Halliday (Allen Lane) and On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging by Nicola Chester (Chelsea Green Publishing) in the nature prize, Wild Fell: Fighting for Nature on a Lake District Hill Farm by Lee Schofield (Doubleday) in the conservation prize and October, October by Katya Balen, illustrated by Angela Harding (Bloomsbury) in the children’s prize.  

Last year’s winners were English Pastoral (Allen Lane) by James Rebanks for the nature prize and Entangled Life (Vintage) by Merlin Sheldrake for the conservation prize.