The AFC Conservation Artist Award is awarded monthly to honour a member for outstanding artistic talent and extraordinary contribution to the conservation cause. At the end of each year, a prior recipient of the monthly honour is selected for the annual Simon Combes Conservation Award.

The Simon Combes Conservation Award was created by the AFC in February 2005 to honour Combes' memory. Combes, world-renowned painter, author, instructor and dedicated conservationist, was tragically killed by a charging Cape Buffalo while hiking near his home in Kenya on December 12, 2004.  At the time, Combes was the Director of the Kenya chapter of the Rhino Rescue Trust (www.rhinorescue.org), an organization founded in 1985 to protect endangered species from poachers and to help the communities surrounding Lake Nakuru National Park affected by wildlife conflicts.   As this is the first year for the award, the first recipient has yet to be selected.

For Robert, conservation and wildlife are very much a way of life. He continues to dedicate time and to help financially in whatever way he can. "I want my daughter, and thousands of other young people to be able to have the right to enjoy a world that is, at the very least as rich in species and landscape as when I was a child."

"For many years I worked in horticulture, managing an estate garden in Herefordshire (UK) of over one thousand acres during the 1970s. Much of it was woodland, but it was also home to collections of plants brought from around the world over three centuries. In the early 1980s I started Nature’s Way together with my wife, Angela. At the time we were the first private self-funded business in the UK to undertake the design and construction of wildlife reserves and ecological teaching areas. We designed the early layout for Barn Elms (now the London Wetland Centre) for Sir Peter Scott, and it was Peter who inspired me to set more time aside for painting. Natural England (then the Nature Conservancy Council) commissioned us to re-design their headquarters in Peterborough, followed by a number of their other projects.

We have worked alongside most of the major conservation bodies in the UK as well as private companies, education authorities, colleges and schools. In 1984 we began a project that was unique for its time and one I remain proud to have been involved in: the Humber Marsh Wetland Reserve, a project dedicated to eco-environmental teaching and wildlife conservation. Humber Marsh was the first of our ‘Ark’ sites, reserves that played host to many rare and unusual species. Its design and build over five years was especially mindful of the teaching role it would play in wildlife conservation and ecology. Today the reserve has taken on a life of its own. It remains in private ownership and hosts its own green eco business in renewable energy development. I think that my art has been improved by the 'hands on' experience that I have shared with the land and with wildlife, especially with wildlife rehabilitation. The re-sighting of badgers to new and safe sets that we have helped to construct and provide long term support for. Wildlife rescue projects and long time care for mammals that have been unfortunate to be trapped or abused by people for what they see as sport. And perhaps the most important of all, the children that have spent time on our teaching reserves and evolved a passionate interest in conservation and wildlife, Its been a joy to share and to watch that grow and develop far beyond anything that I expected.

At about the same time I began writing, producing and presenting wildlife programmes for BBC radio and television. Being a freelance writer, I was fortunate enough to work with Sir David Attenborough, Simon King and others, concentrating on wildlife and landscape in the UK. For five years I presented ‘The Green Scene’, a weekly wildlife and ecology magazine programme for BBC radio, and most recently was part of producing a programme for the BBC series ‘Nature’s Diary’ presented by zoologist Chris Packham featuring one of my favourite mammals: the otter. My role was to locate and set up filming opportunities for the wildlife cameraman from Bristol’s natural history unit, while allowing the general film crew to record Chris and myself talking as we watched these amazing animals. This was a challenge since the aim of the programme was to film wildlife where viewers would also be able to visit and enjoy them. I managed to locate a female with cubs who had learned the trick of following a local ferry arriving from the island of Mull. She would collect the food its propellers churned up; and would then return to the loch side and her Holt to feed young cubs: all this in full view of the many passengers on the harbour wall and aboard the ferry.

View more previous winners:

• 2009 Conservation Artist Award Winners
• 2008 Conservation Artist Award Winners
• 2007 Conservation Artist Award Winners
• 2006 Conservation Artist Award Winners
• 2005 Conservation Artist Award Winners
• 2004 Conservation Artist Award Winners