NatGeo Explorer Carlton Ward Jr. to Receive 2026 Eliza Scidmore Award for Outstanding Storytelling
The award recognizes Ward’s powerful legacy of harnessing visual storytelling to spotlight the urgent need for habitat connectivity and driving tangible conservation policy change.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 15, 2026) — Carlton Ward Jr. will receive the National Geographic Society’s 2026 Eliza Scidmore Award for Outstanding Storytelling, recognizing a career defined by the use of visual narratives to illuminate threatened landscapes and wildlife and translate them into pivotal conservation outcomes.
A National Geographic Explorer and award-winning conservation photographer, Ward has devoted decades to an innovative storytelling strategy, advocating for protected wilderness areas that coexist with working lands. Through his tireless work as founder of the Florida Wildlife Corridor project and Wildpath, Ward has documented a vast array of the natural world, uncovered the unifying stories that bring people together through shared landscapes, and helped transform public will into tangible legislative action.
Drawing on the proven conservation model established by his work in Florida — most recently the instrumental Path of the Panther project — his advocacy directly inspired the unanimous passage of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act in 2021. This landmark legislation designated half of Florida as a priority for wildlife corridor conservation and has since allocated more than $2 billion toward protecting a statewide network of public and private lands, connecting vital wildlife habitats to prevent fragmentation and securing Florida’s wildlife and drinking water for future generations.
“Carlton’s masterful work proves something we’ve always known at the Society: stories change the world,” said Jill Tiefenthaler, CEO of the National Geographic Society. “Through his lens, we see the beauty, struggle and resilience of nature with fresh urgency and care. Carlton turns images into influence and stories into real, lasting change. For his ability to move people from awareness to action, we are honored to present Carlton with the 2026 Eliza Scidmore Award for Outstanding Storytelling and are so proud to support his work in Florida and beyond.”
Building on the success of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act, Ward — an eighth-generation Floridian making an example for the power of storytellers portraying the places where they live — is now scaling his impact globally. He is leading Connected Planet, a new joint initiative with the Society and Wildpath to combat global biodiversity loss. The Connected Planet program will support Explorers around the world in creating targeted, place-based stories that accelerate the identification and protection of wildlife corridors.
Through their efforts, they aim to bridge fragmented habitats, build consensus, provide a baseline to inform policy outcomes, and make a compelling case for protecting networks of connected lands and waters. The project is designed to directly advance the global "30x30" goal of protecting at least 30% of the planet’s lands and waters by 2030 — a critical initiative to ensure resilient ecosystems are conserved to tackle the extinction crisis, stabilize global climate and sustain communities for future generations.
“My work is rooted in a commitment to using photography as a vehicle for advocacy, especially when the connectivity of our natural world is at stake,” said Ward. “I am driven by a desire to reconnect the planet and, in doing so, reconnect people to nature. I have found that storytelling is often the missing catalyst to transform science into action, so to truly save these landscapes, we must go beyond documentation by visually defining the path for wildlife while influencing the public policies required to protect them. It is a true honor to receive this award, and my hope is that the Connected Planet project provides a blueprint for how to turn local stories into lasting ecological protection.”
Through his photography, Ward continues to advocate for the protection of the Florida Wildlife Corridor and is now following the migratory pathways of marine species to expand the vision of wildlife corridors into his home waters along Florida’s Gulf Coast. While leading the global Connected Planet project with the Society and Wildpath, Ward continues to serve as a founding fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) and fellow of the Explorers Club.
His ongoing impact has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Conservation Leadership Award from the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida, an Emmy Award for the National Geographic film “Path of the Panther,” and nomination to the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Ward’s photographs are exhibited in museums and galleries and widely published in books and magazines, including Audubon, Smithsonian, Nature Conservancy and National Geographic.
The Eliza Scidmore award — named for the writer and photographer Eliza Scidmore, the first woman elected to the Society’s Board of Trustees in 1892 — recognizes individuals whose work focuses on immersive storytelling to advance our understanding of the environmental and conservation issues we face, with the ultimate goal of supporting societies in making the best decisions for a healthier planet. Ward will receive this honor during the annual National Geographic Storytellers Summit in February 2026. To learn more about Ward and other Explorers’ work, visit our website here.
Source: https://news.nationalgeographic.org/national-geographic-explorer-carlton-ward-jr-to-receive-2026-eliza-scidmore-award-for-outstanding-storytelling/