Things that are about to disappear: photography as environmental conservation
Cristina Mittermeier combines the aesthetic of natural photography with the conservation of ancient cultures and the environment.
Cristina Mittermeier is the founder of the International League of Conservationist Photography (iLCP), and is at the front of a modern movement to use photography with environmental purposes. Her work entails taking photographs of “things that are about to disappear”, with the purpose of, hopefully, changing the course of events. What she has achieved is no lesser feat.
Ten years ago she coined the term “Conservation photography” and realized there are hundreds of nature photographers who, like her, do not limit their work to the aesthetic experience, but they also use this means to make others aware of the dangers of degradation and oblivion. Among the many places she has been able to help is the NGO in the Flathead River, Canada, which stopped a project that wanted to demolish a mountain. She also helped to create a new protected are in Balandra Bay in La Paz, Mexico.
Her background as a marine biologist has helped Mittermeir become an essential agent of change. She now works with Paul Nicklen, a National Geographic photographer, and together they travel around the world throwing light on the shortcomings and risk that biodiversity and indigenous communities face. In an interview with MMN, she states:
There is only one thing we all need to do and that is to take personal responsibility. We are out of easy choices and from now on, every choice we make will be harder, because the impacts, both positive and negative are becoming more obvious. Every consumer choice, every political choice, every investment we make needs to be made with full information. Where does our food come from? What are the implications of choosing a political candidate? Is there a better choice I can make?
It is a lot of work and I understand that most people don’t want to bother with it, but at this stage of the game, it is the only attitude that can change the course of history.
Her photographs are stunning. They show the wholeness that reigns over traditional cultures, which are at the margin of modern problems that we are responsible for. Her characters, apparently, have a better idea of what fullness is and an eloquence that most of us still strive to achieve. Mittermeier, additionally, is a great public speaker, which has enabled her to save and protect endangered wild areas. She explains her work in her TED talk.
Related Articles
When ancient rituals became religion
The emergence of religions irreversibly changed the history of humanity. It’s therefore essential to ask when and how did ancient peoples’ rituals become organized systems of thought, each with their
Larung Gar, the valley that is home to thousands of Buddhist monks
If we think about the monastic life it is very probable that we think about solitude, seclusion, silence and a few other qualities whose common denominator is the appropriate isolation for mediation
Dialogue with the Dalai Lama on science and spirituality
The Dalai Lama has been interested in science since he was a child. Over the years he’s visited many laboratories and has attended conferences that discuss consciousness from the scientific point of
A New Year's resolution for the earth
Worrisome quantities of waste are generated by human populations. Especially in cities, these have reached unprecedented and alarming levels. A largely uncontrolled practice, it affects everything on
The Dark Mountain Project: or how literature can confront ecocide
One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned” (fragment) Words are elementary. The only reason we can
Are there no women in the history of philosophy?
Do only men philosophize? This could sound like a silly question, but if we quickly review the names of philosophers, from Aristotle to Slavoj Žižek, it would appear to be an exercise that is
Architecture And Music; An Affair That Acts On The Matter
A composition is like a house you can walk around in. — John Cage Perhaps music, more than the art of sound, is the art of time. That’s why its communion with space, and architecture, is so often so
Psycho-geography (On The Ritual Casting of a City)
Mrs. Dalloway walked down the streets of London guided by an “internal tide” that made her stop somewhere, enter a store, turn at the corner and continue her journey, as if she were adrift. La dérive
A Theme Park Inspired by Hayao Miyazaki is About to Open …
One of animation’s most spectacular exponents, Hayao Miyazaki, is the artist who transformed the direction of traditional animation forever.
Machines of the Island: A Bestiary of the Impossible
On the banks of the Loire River, in the former shipyards of the French port of Nantes, Les Machines de l’île (The machines of the island), is an ambitious and colossal project by Francoise Delaroziére