Bringing Conservation into Focus, Photographers with Meaning and Purpose

The Photographs

“The ILCP was born when I realized there might be other photographers like myself who had given meaning and purpose to their work by attaching it to conservation issues,” founder and Executive Director Cristina Mittermeier told Organic Connections. “I thought that if I were able to gather the biggest names in nature photography and get them to speak about how they give purpose to their work, we would be able to influence a large number of amateur photographers out there, as well as people in general.

“To aspire to be a member of ILCP, you really have to be at the top of your game as a professional, and also must have a sustained relationship and dedication to conservation. You must also have a certain standard of integrity and ethics and abide by the highest standards of photojournalism.

“I think the most interesting thing about ILCP is that the majority of photographers are loners—they don’t generally work in groups or in teams. It was told to me that it would be impossible to get these people to work together. In assembling the organization and working with them, though, I’d say exactly the opposite has been true. When it comes to putting our work and our voices together for conservation, I’ve never had an issue. We have felt a real sense of camaraderie and community. I think that is one of the gifts of the ILCP, in a profession that otherwise is very competitive and lonely.”

“For myself—and I think for a lot of us—the ILCP was a long time coming,” remarked conservation photographer and writer Amy Gulick. “Photographers tend to work independently. While many of us knew each other and kept track of each other’s work, we were never organized as a group to come together and take all of our collective knowledge and images and try to tackle some of these larger issues.

“It’s been really exciting. Among the first 40 or so founding photographers, we virtually had the whole world covered in terms of images. Now we’re this collective force that can act quickly. For example, a coalition of conservation, science and faith organizations approached the ILCP to put together an exhibit on global warming. Within a few days, we were able to come up with almost everything they needed. Prior to having this organization, it would have been, ‘Okay, we’re going to hire so-and-so to go to Antarctica and other locations to do a shoot,’ and by the time it was done it would have been a year later. With pressing issues like global warming, we don’t have a year. We’ve really got to get this message out now.

“The synergy among us is powerful, and reaching people with our images to help the world understand the critical conservation issues of our time is what we do best.”

Cristina Mittermeier as Photographer

Cristina Mittermeier has a knowledge of the importance of conservation that few possess. Born and raised in Mexico City, her original training was as a marine biologist, and her first job out of college was working for Conservation International in Mexico for the preservation of the Gulf of California and the Lacandona rainforest. Through her work with CI, she met her husband, Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International.

As a marine biologist, she obviously had a keen interest in science and conservation; but when she began raising children, she realized she didn’t quite have the time to keep abreast of the constant advances and discoveries in science. She had already recognized that photography was an excellent method of communication and so returned to school to pursue a career in that field in earnest.

In striking out, however, Mittermeier made an interesting discovery about herself. “I started my career thinking that I was going to be a wildlife photographer,” she said. “Even though I can do it, I have never really felt the amazing rush that you feel when you are achieving great photographic success.

“It was almost by accident that I discovered my real passion is in photographing people. I have found that my most passionate and sincere and honest and relevant work came about when I was in villages working with indigenous people, trying to show the intimate relationship between healthy ecosystems and some of the most vulnerable and marginalized people on the planet. It translates into a larger message of how important nature is to the well-being of us all.”

Through her career, Cristina Mittermeier has gained access to very remote places that few westerners have ever seen. These include the highlands of New Guinea and South America’s Guiana Shield. The bulk of her work has been in the Amazon rainforest with a group of Indians called the Kayapo, who live in a pristine region given over to them by the Brazilian government. These people are charged with the stewardship of an area of forest the size of the state of New York. “There are about five thousand people living in this area,” Mittermeier stated. “They are maintaining a traditional lifestyle very independent of outside influences. It is truly amazing that the only reason this large region is not being logged or burned is because these Indians are conserving it.

“When we talk about carbon emissions and forest markets, it’s very difficult to bring a human face to it. So part of what I am trying to do is use my relationship to the indigenous communities to say, ‘These are people that are doing an enormous favor for humanity.’”

Madagascar

“I was hired by Conservation International to travel with a team—a writer, a filmmaker and myself as a photographer. We spent three weeks traveling to a series of protected areas in Madagascar to document the many benefits of conserving the rainforest for carbon sequestration, for healthy communities, for wildlife, for ecotourism, for clean air, clean water, pollination and other important factors. Conservation International will use those images to communicate the imperative of conserving forests. I am very privileged and lucky to be attached to these efforts.”

ILCP Member Amy Gulick

“I spend as much of my life outdoors as I possibly can,” ILCP member Amy Gulick told Organic Connections. “I finally made my total passion my career.

“Early in my career, the more I was photographing and writing about places I liked to visit, the more painfully obvious it became to me how much of the wilderness— all of these special habitats and species—we were losing, and how much we have lost. So my focus became educating people and making them aware of these issues and these incredible areas, and that there are things we actually can do to preserve them. I wasn’t so much trying to alarm and depress people—a lot of conservation efforts can be ‘doom and gloom’—but rather exciting people and making them fall in love with these places and animals. When people love a place, they will act on its behalf when it’s threatened.

“I find things beautiful that others wouldn’t necessarily. Watching grizzly bears in Alaska tear apart thousands of salmon and leave stinking rotten fish carcasses along streams—that’s beautiful. It’s this amazing cycle of life that’s going on right in front of you.

“Most people would look at an iconic picture of mountains in gorgeous light and say, ‘That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!’ For me, it’s not that it isn’t beautiful; it’s just that I prefer to look at the whole ecosystem and the life cycle and the process. To me, if those things are complete and functioning as they should be, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

The Tongass Rainforest

Gulick is currently working with a coalition of conservation organizations to preserve critical areas of the Tongass rainforest in Alaska. Through her project “Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rainforest,” she is assisting in outreach to the general public and decision makers, creating a book, a website and a traveling exhibit, and making both live and Web presentations.

“The Tongass is a wonderful example of a coastal temperate rainforest. Worldwide, coastal temperate rainforests are rare,” Gulick explained. “They have historically covered one one-thousandth of the earth’s land surface; and they’re rare because they need very specific conditions to exist—cool temperatures and a coastal mountain range that traps air and causes a lot of moisture.

“North America’s original coastal temperate rainforest stretched from central Alaska along the west coast all the way south to the northern California redwoods. About half of the original forest is gone due to logging, agriculture and other development, but the Tongass is amazingly intact. In fact, it contains one-third of the world’s remaining coastal temperate rainforest. Some of it has been logged and the remainder must be protected. But all of the species that existed at the time of European contact in the 1700s are still there—there’s not a single piece missing from that beautiful life cycle.

“I always try to get people excited by how complete it is and how rare it is. All the large predators are still there—grizzly bears, black bears, wolves and wolverines. And it’s one of the last places in the world that can support healthy runs of wild salmon.

“There aren’t many places left on our planet with intact ecosystems, and they won’t stay that way if we continue business as usual. What’s exciting in the Tongass is that today we have this incredible opportunity to ensure that the cycle of life does not get broken, that all the pieces remain.”