In 2024, De Volkskrant, Landschappen NL, and Vroege Vogels teamed up to launch a brand new award for the best book on nature in the Dutch language:
De Natuurboekenprijs (Best Nature Book Award).

The past two years (2026 and 2025) Deleo was commissioned to create an original artwork to be awarded to the winner along with a cash prize.

Past year winners were:
– Tine Hens with “Archief van mogelijk verlies” (2026)
– Eva Meijer with “Muizenleven” (2025)

For the award of 2026 Deleo painted a midwife toad that blends into the winding body of an eel. He used the eel’s body as a kind of timeline. If you follow the winding movement backward in time from the toad, you’ll notice the color gradually fading out of the drawing. That symbolizes our memory and refers to the Shifting Baseline Syndrome, something Tine often talks and writes about.
It basically means that each new generation forgets just how rich nature used to be before their time, so our definition of ‘normal’ keeps degrading. That’s also why there are three starlings in the piece. Where you used to see massive flocks of thousands of birds, his drawing only shows three. And only one of those is barely halfway colored in.

You can scroll down to see the framed artworks for both 2026 and 2025.

A short filmed impression showing the creative process behind the the artwork for the 2025 Best Nature Book Award can be seen here.