The image of red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside to commemorate children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, an institution created to assimilate indigenous children in Canada, won the World Press Photo of The Year award. Captured by Amber Bracken, the photo is one in her series about the school. Photo: Amber Bracken/VCG

The series entitled Saving Forests with Fire won the World Press Photo Story of The Year award. Created by Australian documentary photographer Matthew Abbott, it presents the traditional ways that the Nawarddeken people employ to tackle wildfires. Photo: Matthew Abbott/VCG

The photo from the Saving Forests with Fire series shows a bird flying above a cool-burning fire lit by hunters in Mamadawerre, Australia, on May 2, 2021. Cool burning, which is also known as cultural burning, is a traditional fire management method of indigenous people, in which they set small blazes to clear the underbrush to prevent larger fires during drier months. Photo: Matthew Abbott/VCG

Nawarddeken elder Conrad Maralngurra burns grass to protect the Mamadawerre community from late-season wildfires in Mamadawerre on May 3. Photo: Matthew Abbott/VCG

Stacey Lee (left), 11, sets alight the bark of trees to produce natural light for hunting fire snakes in Djulkar, Arnhem Land, Australia, on July 21. Photo: Matthew Abbott/VCG

The series entitled Amazonian Dystopia by Brazil-based photographer Lalo de Almeida, which documents the imminent threats facing the Amazon rainforest, won the World Press Photo Long-Term Project award. Photo: Lalo de Almeida/VCG

An aerial view of constrution of the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in Altamira, Brazil, in September 2013. Photo: Lalo de Almeida/VCG

Members of the Munduruku community line up to board a plane at Altamira Airport in Brazil on June 14, 2013. They traveled to the national capital Brasilia to present their demands to the government after protesting at the site of the Belo Monte Dam. Despite pressure from indigenous people, environmentalists and nongovernmental organizations, the Belo Monte project was completed in 2019. Photo: Lalo de Almeida/VCG

A boy surrounded by patches of dead trees in August 2018 rests on a tree trunk in the Xingu River in Paratizao, a community located near the Belo Monte Dam. Photo: Lalo de Almeida/VCG

A member of the Quilombola community lies passed out drunk on a bench in Pedras Negras in Brazil on Jan. 29, 2021. The Afro-Brazilian community consists of Black Brazilians, some of which are descendants of enslaved people from Africa. Photo: Lalo de Almeida/VCG

Stray dogs stare at meat hanging in a butcher’s shop window in Vila da Ressaca, Brazil, on Sept. 2, 2013. Once a gold mining area, it is now almost completely abandoned. Photo: Lalo de Almeida/VCG

Women and children from the Piraha community stand next to their camp on the banks of the Maici River in the hope of reciving food from passing by drivers in Humaita, Brazil, on Sept. 21, 2016. Photo: Lalo de Almeida/VCG

A billboard displaying a message of support for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stands alongside the Trans-Amazonian Highway in Altamira, Brazil, on July 20, 2020. Agribusiness is one of the president’s main pillars of political support there. Photo: Lalo de Almeida/VCG

The video titled Blood is a Seed by an Ecuadorian photographer won the World Press Photo Open Format award. Photo: Isadora Romero/VCG

Consisting of digital and film photographs, the video questions the disappearance of seeds, forced migration, colonization, and the subsequent loss of ancestral knowledge. Photo: Isadora Romero/VCG

Some of the photos presented in the video were taken on expired 35mm films and later drawn on by Romero’s father. Photo: Isadora Romero/VCG

Narrated by the photographer and her father, the video presents transformations experienced by farmers over the last three generations. Photo: Isadora Romero/VCG

The project uses contemporary photography techniques to explore how the decline of agrobiodiversity has modified the development of agriculture and pushed for monocultures of higher yield crops. Photo: Isadora Romero/VCG