Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane’s latest work, The Book of Birds, won the competition’s Book of the Year award
The winners of the 2026 Wainwright Prizes – the UK’s foremost nature and conservation writing awards – have been announced at a ceremony held at the Elmley Nature Reserve in Kent.
Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane’s The Book of Birds was awarded the 2026 Wainwright Prize Book of the Year, while Thomas Halliday and Gavin Scott won the 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize Book of the Year with their book Otherlands: An Illustrated Journey Through Earth’s Lost Worlds.
The Wainwright Prizes have been awarded every year since 2014 and showcase writing that reflects the values of its namesake, Alfred Wainwright, celebrating nature and the environment.
This year’s category winners are:
The 2026 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing: Ancient: Reviving the Woods That Made Britain by Luke Barley (Profile Books)
The 2026 Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing: The Savage Landscape by Cal Flyn (HarperCollins/William Collins)
The 2026 Wainwright Prize for Illustrative Books: The Book of Birds by Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane, (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House UK)
The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Fiction: The Danger of Small Things by Caryl Lewis (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)
The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Non-Fiction: Otherlands: An Illustrated Journey Through Earth’s Lost Worlds by Thomas Halliday, illustrated by Gavin Scott (Penguin Random House Children’s UK Puffin)
The 2026 Children’s Wainwright Prize for Picture Books: The Great Bear by Annie Booker (Two Hoots)
Alongside these winners, several books were highly commended:
Nature Writing: Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and Community by Nicola Chester (Chelsea Green Publishing)
Conservation Writing: Green Crime: Inside the Minds of the People Destroying the Planet, and How to Stop Them by Dr Julia Shaw (Canongate Books) and When the Forest Breathes by Suzanne Simard (Allen Lane, Penguin Press)
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Illustrative Books: Funga Obscura: Photo Journeys Among Fungi by Alison Pouliot (University of Chicago Press)
Children’s Fiction: The Adventures of Portly the Otter: Untold Tales From the Wind in the Willows by M.G. Leonard, illustrated by Polly Dunbar (Farshore, HarperCollins)
Children’s Non-Fiction: The Cave Explorer by Kate Winter (Penguin Random House Children’s UK Puffin)
Children’s Picture Books: Isla & The Sky by Greg Stobbs (Oxford University Press)
Overall winners were chosen by an executive panel, distinct from the category judges, who drew on recommendations of the category judging panels. Each overall winning book was awarded £2,500, with individual category winners receiving £500.
