A B.C. photographer is being recognized on the world stage for her work.

Daisy Gilardini’s incredible photos of rare Kermode bears won the 2017 Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Award for Outstanding Conservation Story.

Photo Credit: Nature's Best Photography

Gilardini’s work beat out thousands of other entries from photographers all over the world.

There are less than 1,000 of these animals left in the world and they’re only found on Canada’s west coast.

Gilardini says the protection of these bears is “essential.”

“The Great Bear Rainforest is the largest coastal temperate rainforest in the world and certainly one of the most pristine places on earth I have ever visited,” Gilardini writes. “Here lives the Kermode bear – one of the rarest bears in the world.”

“Also called by the First Nations ‘mooksgm’ol’ or ‘spirit bear,’ it is a subspecies of the American black bear that, due to a unique recessive gene, has a white or cream-coloured fur.”

Those words are from a video Gilardini produced showcasing the bears, which accompanies her award winning photography.

You can find more of her work on her website.