The National Geographic Society announced 15 recipients of its 2025 Wayfinder Award presented by Kia, honoring a new cohort of National Geographic Explorers, including Hana Raza, a Kurdish wildlife conservationist.

According to the National Geographic Society, Raza is a wildlife conservationist and founder of Leopards Beyond Borders (LBB), a nonprofit organization working to protect endangered species in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.

The leopards in Kurdistan’s mountains are internationally known as Persian leopards.

Read more: Protecting Kurdistan’s Last Leopards

In 2011, for the first time in the history of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, Raza recorded a leopard, a male, using a camera trap on Qaradagh Mountain in Sulaymaniyah Governorate.

This discovery motivated Hana to dedicate her life to protecting the leopards of Kurdistan. Later, she went to Newcastle University in the UK to study ecology and wildlife.

In 2022, Hana established LBB in the Kurdistan Region.

“Our aim is to change the image of Kurdistan and Iraq, showing the world that it has protected national parks and beautiful nature,” Raza earlier told Kurdistan Chronicle.