They set up their tents and the sun sets below the immense horizon of the Kazakh steppe. As darkness closes in and the team settles down for the night, doubt begins to rise. Will they ever find the last herd of Saiga antelope? Weeks before, over 90 percent of the world’s largest Saiga population dropped dead from a mysterious infection. Nearly 200,000 animals died in the space of days. Their carcasses littered the landscape.

Now a team of researchers, along with a production team from DW’s Global Ideas, is on a journey to discover why. But they have crossed a thousand kilometers and there are no Saiga, only swarms of mosquitoes. Hidden somewhere in the endless landscape, is all that’s left of a critically endangered species. Can the team led by led Steffen Zuther from the Frankfurt Zoological Society protect what remains of the species?

Morning arrives and the herd isn’t where it is supposed to be and rain has turned the dirt roads into impassable muddy puddles. The researchers have tracking collars on two animals, but they don’t know exactly where the Saiga are. According to Zuther, the Saiga can run 100 kilometers in one day and their search area, the Altyn Dala reserve in central Kazakhstan, is the size of France.

“The steppe is an incredibly beautiful and surprising landscape,” says Zuther. “The openness is truly impressive. Such expanses you don’t find anywhere else but at sea.”

Will the team ever find the last of the Saiga? The whole story is now on Saigas in distress, a multimedia production that combines video, photos and text for an interactive and immersive experience. Using the multimedia storytelling tool Pageflow, stunning cinematography and photography capture the majesty of the steppe and lets users experience the environment and join the team as the story unfolds.

Along with the Frankfurt Zoological Society, DW’s partners on Saiga in distress include the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK), Flora and Fauna International, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Committee for Foresty and Wildlife.

DW is valued all over the world for revealing unqiue ways to understand important global issues. A series of recent high-profile awards is a strong sign that this quality is being appreciated.

A prime example is the PromaxBDA Promotion, Marketing and Design Global Excellence Awards, where two DW productions won three awards last week in Los Angeles.

The youth-oriented documentary program Life Links received a gold award in the category, “Art Direction & Design: News Opener.” Life Links premiered last year and features personal and impactful stories from young people across the world.

Two bumpers from the Global Ideas series also won awards in the category “Art direction and design: News Bumper”. A gold went to “Biodiversity- Birds” and a silver to “Biodiversity- Forests”.  The documentaries from Global Ideas cover a fascinating variety of environmental and social issues tied to globalization.

In the winning categories, DW was among top brands in international news and documentary entertainment like CNN, BBC News and the Discovery Channel.

ProximaBDA is an international association for marketing, promotion and design with 10,000 members in 70 countries. The Global Excellence Awards recognize outstanding work in all branches of media marketing.

Another example is in Jordan, where DW received the Al Haitham Arab Media Award for the best international broadcaster with Arabic-language programming. The prize will be presented in August at the Arab Youth Media Forum in Amman, Jordan. The jury said that DW (Arabia) was a “reliable and trustworthy” source of information marked by a strong cultural profile and quality documentaries.

DW (Arabia) brings audiences from Morocco to Saudi Arabia a valuable independent perspective on global news and events. Starting June 22, the channel will broadcast 24 hours a day in Arabic.

Two DW productions were awarded with gold prizes at the 16^th annual World Media Festival in Hamburg. DW’s youth-oriented documentary format Life Links won a gold award in the “web-based new media” category. Winning a gold medal in the “E-learning and education” category was the DW Global Ideas production, A school for orangutans: learning to survive in the wild.

Life Links impressed jury members with well-produced and intimate personal portrayals of challenges that are similarly faced by young people around the world. The format combines a televised episode with an attractive website that expands on the issues in focus and invites the audience to discuss ideas.

A school for orangutans: learning to survive in the wild is another successful example of the interactive web documentary format. This emerging medium brings together stunning graphics with entertaining interactive features that create an entertaining learning process. This year’s gold-winning web documentary feature was produced in cooperation with the Federal Environment Ministry of Germany.

A DW web documentary was highly commended by the Association of International Broadcasting (AIB) at the media excellence awards ceremony in London.  Serengeti– Towards an uncertain future takes an up-close and interactive look at the unique natural beauty of this famous national park and addresses the tough challenges of conservation. The documentary was produced as a part of DW’s environmental series, Global Ideas, and was distinguished in the Factual Online Production category at the AIB awards. It premiered in August 2013 in English, German and Spanish and has already won several awards. The Frankfurt Zoological Society was also an integral production partner.

And there is a new interactive web documentary from DW’s Global Ideas. On Expedition is an interactive guide to everything researchers need to survive long journeys into exotic field locations.  The web doc follows the story of a WWF researcher in South America who encounters a very unexpected challenge during a research expedition.

A diverse selection of DW documentaries, specials and series won numerous awards at the 15^th World Media Festival in Hamburg this past week. Organized by Intermedia, this year’s festival drew 700 entries from 35 countries.

Winning a gold intermedia-globe in the documentary-magazine format category was PopXport Special, a 10-part production from DW’s popular music show that showcases some of Germany’s most successful recording artists. The Global Ideas web-documentary, Serengeti- Toward an uncertain future, won a gold award in the E-Learning and Education category and the 10-part series, Tracing the past: German-Jewish cultural heritage,  won gold in the Documentaries-Other category. The 28-part Euromaxx series, Europe 28 , which takes a look at all 28 capital cities of the EU,  won a gold award in the documentaries-destinations category as did the music documentary, The Highest Level , in the documentaries-arts category.

Winning a silver intermedia-globe award was the music documentary, The Colón Ring- Wagner in Buenos Aires, in the Documentaries-Arts category and a production from Kino- The German Film Magazine  that explores German film in Brazil and the relationship between the two countries won silver in the documentaries-magazine format category. A report from People and Politics was also awarded silver in the News-Documentary category. It tells the story of children who were abducted by the Nazis in Eastern Europe who as adults are searching for their roots.

The performance at the 2014 World Media Festival in Hamburg comes a few weeks after many DW productions won awards at festivals in Las Vegas and Houston.