Conservation Photography
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Transcript of Conservation Photography
Conservation Photography
• Understand
• Take
• Use
What is it?
What it is not
Not photography for photography’s sake
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
It is not going to win awards!
No likes!
Going beyond the pretty picture
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
Offshoot of nature photography but it is born out of “purpose”
Photo: Aditya Panda
Conservation photography is photography that empowers conservation
Photo: Vimal Raj
Everyone can be a conservation photographer
Photo: Shashank Dalvi
You don’t need fancy equipment! Photo: Canon USA
Need to be sensitive to conservation issues
Photo: Anon
Passion to bring about change through your images
Photo: TRAFFIC-India
What you can do starting today?
What you can do starting today?
• Document specific issues
• Tell stories in 5-10 pictures:
• Area or protected area specific
• Issue specific
• Give powerful factual captions
• Seek advice on actioning them – work with local NGOs, report to local authorities, media, petitions, etc.
Conservation photography examples
• Any destruction / construction activity inside a protected area
• Any commercial activity in ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs)
• Habitat destruction or fragmentation — from tree-felling to a full-blown hydroelectric project
• Tree-felling in protected areas and reserve forests
• Roads that have sprung up inside or near a protected area
• Road & railway kills
• Forest fires
Conservation photography examples
• Cattle / goats inside protected areas
• Evidence of poaching / crime – snares, traps, killing, poachers, etc.
• Wildlife kept as pets
• Tourism and its impacts
• Encroachments
• Man-animal conflict, human threats to wildlife, domestic dogs
• Plight of endangered animals
Examples
Big tourism projects destroy habitat and block wildlife corridors
Photo: Akarsha BM / WildCat-C
Man-made linear intrusions have many detrimental ecological effects
Photo: NCF
Images of habitat destruction in protected areas is important evidence for illegal activity
Photo: Shekar Dattatri
Mining in prime tiger habitat outside Tadoba tiger reserve
Photo: Greenpeace
Roads without proper clearances constantly come up in PAs or ESZs
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
Road-widening projects without clearances frequently come up in highways through PAs
Photo: Suresh G
Sarus Cranes in the backdrop of massive construction in Delhi — losing wetland habitat everyday
Photo: Delhibird
Lakes suffer from poor protection across India. Forest dept. is helpless and usually bullied by other forces for
encroachment / development
Photo: Vishwatej Pawar
Windmills in grasslands and plateaus have come up across India hindering flight paths of birds
Photo: Aparna Watve
Including India’s rarest bird
Photo: Nirav Bhat
Destruction of grassland habitat by ‘planting trees’ in Hesaraghatta. This issue is now in the Karnataka High Court
thanks to a PIL
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
This illegal tree cutting operation was documented by a birding group in Namdapha Tiger Reserve
Photo: Bano Haralu
Roadkills are a serious conservation threat – a pregnant blackbuck killed by a speeding vehicle in Maharashtra
Photo: Adwait Keole
The danger of urban roads – here a dead leopard killed by a speeding vehicle on NICE road, Bangalore
Photo: Deccan Herald
Tragic– an elephant calf mowed down in Bandipur. Images like these were used to lobby for several highway closures in
Karnataka and other states
Image: Deccan Herald
A sambhar lays dead on an Odisha highway. Roads are sometimes upgraded without need and the first victims are
usually wildlife
Photo: Bivash Pandav
Small animals die too like this Slender Loris in the Western Ghats
Photo: NCF
Shy and elusive creatures are more often seen in markets and roadkills
Photo: Dr. Pramod Patil
Railway tracks pose a significant conservation threat. Every kind of animal – elephant, tiger, lion – have been killed on
Indian tracks.
Photo: Giri Cavale
Animals in human habitation – a fragile “coexistence”
Photo: M. Ananda Kumar
Olive Ridley Turtles killed in fishing nets
Photo: Bivash Pandav
Village dogs and turtles – yet another threat for nesting Olive Ridley Turtles in the Odisha coast
Photo: Sumit Sen
The dangers of village / feral dogs range from competing with wild predators to spreading deadly diseases
Photo: Vickey Chauhan
Village / feral dogs harbour several diseases that can be deadly not only to humans (such as rabies) but to wild
carnivore species as well.
Photo: Jayanth Sharma
A Wild dog with a plastic bottle demonstrates littering by tourists – a serious fall-out of tourism.
Photo: Mahesh Bhat
Critically endangered bustards hiding from tourists in Nannaj, Maharashtra
Photo: Dhritiman Mukherjee
No caption required!
Photo: Ponnambalam
Same story. Different location. Tourists and wildlife guides on foot in Kaziranga
Photo: Leio D’Souza
Fragmentation affects endangered animals. This lion-tailed macaque begging for food on a Valparai roadside shows the
plight of a once completely arboreal troupe
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
Agriculture is another significant threat to wildlife – in this case to the endangered Wild Ass in the little Rann of Kutch
Photo: Nirav Bhat
The endangered Lesser Florican displaying in agricultural fields in Saunkhaliya grasslands, Rajasthan
Photo: Gobind Sagar Bharadwaj
A stark contrast between protected and unprotected areas in Bandipur Tiger Reserve separated by the park boundary
Photo: Shekar Dattatri
Full-fledged farming Inside the heart of Simlipal – one of India’s largest tiger reserves
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
Pushed to the brink in human-dominated landscapes – critically endangered Gangetic Gharials in the fragile
Chambal river habitat
Photo: Aditya Singh
Temples and religious festivities inside PAs are big threats to wildlife. In Sathyamangalam, lakhs of visitors in over 700
buses visit two temples
Photo: Suraj Kumaar
This Image highlights human-tiger conflict after two cattle-lifter tigers were poisoned by villagers in retaliation in
Ranthambore.
Photo: Aditya Singh
The typical end to a ‘conflict’ leopard – tranquilized and sent to a zoo or re-released to cause ‘conflict’ elsewhere
Photo: Vidya Athreya
More conflict – crop-raiding elephants in the plains of Karnataka
Photo: Shankara
An electrocuted elephant is usually the result of conflict and habitat fragmentation due to plantations
Photo: WCS-India
Elephant taunting became a sport in Coimbatore forests. This photographer created a campaign that stopped this
Photo: Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan
This shocking cellphone image of a frenzied mob setting a captured leopard on fire highlights the height of human-
leopard conflict
Photo: Belinda Wright
Large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes
Photo: Dharmendra Khandal
A freshly killed Grey-sided Thrush shows the sorry state of hunting in Nagaland
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
A shocking image of freshly skinned Amur Falcons in Doyang, Nagaland. Lakhs were being hunted annually
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
Sometimes multiple images tell a story better. Here are images of bird trapping in Murlen, Mizoram
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
Birdwatchers helped nab waterfowl poachers in Siruthavur near Chennai
Photo: Samyak Kaninde
Pelican poaching reported from Kanva dam, Channapatna
Photo: Seshadri KS
Illegally captured parakeet chicks were seized in Palamau tiger reserve in Jharkhand. They were on the way to markets
Image: Aditya Panda
This is the only record of a Blue Pitta in India – taken in a market in Arunachal Pradesh
Photo: Rita Banerji / Dusty Foot
A pet Slow Loris in Mokakchung, Nagaland. Most villagers weren’t aware that keeping wildlife as pets was illegal.
Photo: Nagaland Biodiversity Project
A captive giant squirrel in a coffee estate. The forest department was alerted and hopefully the squirrel is now
free.
Photo: Amoghavarsha
This photographer helped bust a turtle and terrapin trade in Bengali camp market, Raichur, Karnataka
Photo: Santosh Martin
Local markets are a source of illegal bushmeat especially in the Northeast. Here a Slow Loris is for sale for Rs. 500
Photo: Alka Vaidya
A Clouded Leopard Skin Hangs in a Naga Kitchen
Photo: Sandesh Kadur
Cattle grazing in protected areas, Satkosia Tiger Reserve, Odisha
Photo: Aditya Panda
This image depicts the daily plight of forest guards and watchers who are at the frontline of conservation
Photo: Jayanth Sharma
Thanks!