About Michael AW\r\nmichaelaw.com\r\nFellow International – The Explorer Club, www.explorers.org\r\nSenior Fellow – International League of Conservation Photographers, www.ILCP.org\r\n\r\nMichael AW is a wildlife photographer, explorer and a conservationist. He has authored of 35 books of the ocean. His accolades include winning more than 66 international photographic awards and were named as one of the world’s most influential nature photographers by Outdoor Photography. Michael AW’s essays and pictures have been published in BBC Wildlife, GEO, National Geographic, the Smithsonian, Nature, Ocean Geographic, Asian Geographic, Nature Focus, Times, and Discovery to name but a few.\r\n\r\nFrom 2010 to 2016 Michael was the project director for the Elysium Epic expedition to the Antarctic and Arctic with 66 team members comprise the world’s best image makers and scientists, to document the flora and fauna for a movie and climate change index of the Arctic from Svalbard, Greenland to Iceland. His most recent work was in September of 2018; he led a team of 50, using three vessels for an expedition across the heart of the Coral Triangle for a first ever baseline survey of the biomass of corals and fishes in the region. \r\n\r\nHe is recipient of four awards from the Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year Wildlife Competition in 2000, 2010 and in 2006 and 2015 he was the Winner award for the underwater category. In 2013 he was awarded the NOGI AWARD for Arts and inducted into the American Academy of Underwater Arts and Science.\r\n\r\nIn 2012, Michael’s ‘Indonesia’s Global Treasures’ won the International Prize for Best Book of the Year at the World Underwater Pictures Festival (Festival Mondial de l\'Image Sous Marine). This artistic book category yielded entries from a host of international authors and photographers including books published by media powerhouses from UK, Germany, Singapore, USA and France. “Global Treasures” received the Palme d\'Or (Gold) award. Michael is the first to have won this prestigious award twice; the first was for “Heart of the Ocean” in 2009.\r\n\r\nIn 2010 he won the the prestigious Gold Diver award for the highly contested Portfolio category at the World Festival of Underwater Pictures in France. This is the first time an Asian has won this category. In 2008 Stan Waterman conferred Michael with the Peter Benchley Shark Conservation Award from Sharks Research Institute in recognition of his highly-effective and unrelenting campaign against shark fin soup consumption in the Asia Pacific region. Michael is also a recipient of the prestigious WYLAND ICON award for Conservation in 2011 and in 2012 he was presented the Diver of the Year Award at the Beneath the Sea Festival in New Jersey. In 1999, he led a team of 44 for the world’s first 24 hour documentation of a submerged reef, Maaya Thila in the Maldives. The documentary “24Hours Beneath the Rainbow Sea” was produced for the National Geographic channel and the book of the same title was published in 2000. \r\n\r\nMichael remains today, an active member of the Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers and a Fellow International of The Explorer Club NY. Some of the most prominent Fellows are Sir Edmund Hillary, Roald Amundsen, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, David Doubilet, Emory Kristof, Stan Waterman and Sylvia Earle. \r\nMichael AW is the founder of OceanNEnvironment, a charity organization registered with Environment Australia, Asian Geographic and Ocean Geographic. “Beneath Bunaken”(1993) was his first book and Elysium – Artists for the Arctic is his 36t \r\n