24th annual Animal Action Awards honour conservation and rescue heroes

We received a record-breaking 665 nominations from 29 different countries. Our nine winners hail from the UK, Nigeria, India, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and they represent solutions to a wide array of important issues impacting animals, people, and the planet, including wildlife trafficking, biodiversity loss, pollution, and habitat fragmentation. 

Our host for the night was wildlife photographer, ornithologist, and conservationist Hamza Yassin, who we were delighted to welcome back this year. Hamza is known not only as a winner of Strictly Come Dancing, but also as the star of CBeebies live action shows Let’s Go for a Walk and Ranger Hamza’s Eco Quest and a presenter of BBC’s Countryfile and Animal Park. His passion for ornithology inspired his BBC One documentary, Hamza: Strictly Birds of Prey. 

The event drew in over 200 attendees, who enjoyed dinner and drinks while hearing the stories of our amazing winners. 

Award winners 

Charles Emogor

Charles Emogor is a scientist on a mission to protect pangolins—a small, scaly mammal that is known as one of the world’s most trafficked animals. During his PhD at the University of Cambridge, which he recently completed, Charles designed and implemented behaviour change interventions with poachers, schoolchildren, regional chiefs, and local communities in Nigeria—a key hub for trafficking—to protect black- and white-bellied pangolins. Charles received a Cambridge University Vice-Chancellor Research Impact and Engagement Award for his work, is a 2021 National Geographic explorer, and is part of the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group. He founded Pangolino, a global foundation to raise awareness about pangolin trade, and he developed a tool that enables law enforcement to calculate the scale of pangolin trafficking based on seizures. Charles is now a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, using data collected by rangers across multiple African parks to understand poaching activities and improve ranger patrols. 

Roisin Campbell-Palmer 

Head of Restoration with the Beaver Trust, Roisin Campbell-Palmer is one of the driving forces behind the return of beavers to Britain. Roisin has been instrumental in the re-wildling of these animals, which now have official protected status, with around 2,000 of them living across the country. She has worked with beavers for more than 15 years and authored more than 25 peer-reviewed publications, focused mainly on beaver reintroduction, wildlife health screening, captive care, and welfare. She is also the lead author on the Eurasian beaver management handbook. Recently, Roisin was involved in the release of beavers to west London, the first time they’ve been present in the area in 400 years. 

Dr. Panjit Basumatary  

Panjit Basumatary has been a wildlife veterinarian with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) for 14 years, rescuing, rehabilitating, and helping with the release of wild animals who have faced distress, disease, and injury. Working tirelessly around the clock, Dr. Basumatary has hand-raised rhinos, elephants, clouded leopards, and numerous bear cubs. He has spent days and nights with a baby rhino that was attacked by a tiger, monitoring its wounds and treatments. Dr. Basumatary has also published multiple scientific papers on issues related to the rehabilitation and release of wild animals.   

Bantu Lukambo 

Bantu Lukambo, who founded the organisation Innovation for Development and Environmental Protection (IDPE) in 1994, has worked tirelessly to defend the wildlife around Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo, sometimes facing armed poachers in life-threatening situations. He rescued two baby gorillas, mobilised communities to prevent oil exploration, and created a fund to raise awareness of environmental crimes. IDPE’s goal is to help people understand how animals suffer just like humans and to raise awareness so crimes against the environment are punished as crimes against humanity. IDPE also works with local communities to show people that the national park offers a way out of poverty through wildlife- and nature-friendly livelihoods. Bantu’s leadership in communities played a major role in the withdrawal of the oil company Soco International from its exploration project in Virunga. Bantu received the Alleksandr SOROS Award in New York in 2015 and the title of IUCN Conservation Hero in Hawaii in 2015. 

Reid the detection dog and Rachel Cripps 

Reid, an English Springer Spaniel, is a specialist detection dog who undertakes groundbreaking conservation work—identifying invasive rodents that pose a catastrophic threat to seabird colonies in Scotland. He works alongside his handler, Rachel Cripps, for Biosecurity for Scotland, a project focusing on protecting 38 remote and globally important seabird islands. Reid finished his training as a detection dog in 2021. Before his biosecurity work, he helped monitor bat and endangered water vole populations. Reid is dedicated to his work and tackles dense and difficult habitat with ease and boundless energy. 

Special honours 

Innovator of the Year: The Flipflopi Project 

A boat constructed out of recycled plastic has sailed from the Kenyan coast to Lake Victoria, bringing awareness to the issue of plastic pollution—this is the Flipflopi Project. Flipflopi is working with coastal communities to recover and recycle plastic waste, creating artisanal boats and traditional furniture while leading a regional legislative campaign to ban unnecessary single use plastics. 

Collaborator in Conservation Award: David Rio 

David Rio, an award-winning premium chai and tea brand based in San Francisco, is recognized for its commitment to quality, sustainability, and social responsibility. As a valued partner of IFAW, they support wildlife conservation in Kenya’s Southern Rangelands and have recently committed to rhino protection in Tsavo. Their contributions helped establish a new ranger base in the Illaingarunyoni Conservancy, safeguarding species like elephants, wild dogs, and pangolins. This partnership underscores David Rio’s dedication to both wildlife conservation and empowering local communities. 

Wildlife Advocate of the Year: Dia Mirza 

Dia Mirza is an award-winning actor, green entrepreneur, founder of One India Stories, UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador, and UN Secretary-General's Advocate for Sustainable Development Goals. She has been a WTI and IFAW Global Ambassador since 2017 and is a founding member of WTI’s Club Nature initiative. She voiced Ellie, Asia’s first animatronic elephant created by PETA India, the Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) documentary ‘Big Ocean States’, and ‘Puddles: The Turtle Story’. She also launched India's first Wildlife Anthem, ‘Mere Desh ki Zameen’ and directed the film ‘Kids for Tigers’. For her tireless advocacy, Dia was named in the BBC's 100 Women list in 2023. She is a trailblazer, not just as a multi-faceted artist but a champion of India’s wildlife. 

2024 Lifetime Achievement Winner: Professor Rudi Van Aarde 

Professor Rudi Van Aarde was the founder and director of the Conservation Ecology Research Unit (CERU) in the University of Pretoria’s Department of Zoology and Entomology. He passed away in July 2023, leaving a legacy of innovative and practical conservation. Under his guidance, IFAW’s partnership with CERU spawned our Room to Roam initiative, aiming to secure space for elephant populations in East and southern Africa so their populations can thrive well into the future. The overarching goal of Professor Van Aarde’s research was to understand the drivers of elephant population dynamics across southern Africa, home to 80% of the continent’s elephants. His work, the most comprehensive population-level research ever conducted, helped create the blueprint for elephant population management now being implemented in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, and Kenya.