Conservation Photography

There are probably more amateur nature photographers in India than in any other developing country in the world. India has tens of thousands of wildlife photographers, some of who routinely produce the kind of jaw-dropping images that were once the exclusive preserve of magazines like National Geographic or Geo. While this is something to be proud of, the question we are asking today is, “is it time for India’s wildlife photographers to look beyond the pretty picture?”

This is a presentation I gave at the Karnataka Bird Festival in Ranganathitu Bird Sanctuary, near Mysore on 28th March 2015.

Transcript

1. Conservation Photography Ramki Sreenivasan info@conservationindia.org
2. Conservation Photography • Understand • Take • Use
3. What is it?
4. What it is not
5. Not photography for photography’s sake Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
6. It is not going to win awards!
7. No likes!
8. Going beyond the pretty picture Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
9. Offshoot of nature photography but it is born out of “purpose” Photo: Aditya Panda
10. Conservation photography is photography that empowers conservation Photo: Vimal Raj
11. Everyone can be a conservation photographer Photo: Shashank Dalvi
12. You don’t need fancy equipment! Photo: Canon USA
13. Need to be sensitive to conservation issues Photo: Anon
14. Passion to bring about change through your images Photo: TRAFFIC-India
15. What you can do starting today?
16. 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.
17. 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
18. 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
19. Examples
20. Big tourism projects destroy habitat and block wildlife corridors Photo: Akarsha BM / WildCat-C
21. Man-made linear intrusions have many detrimental ecological effects Photo: NCF
22. Images of habitat destruction in protected areas is important evidence for illegal activity Photo: Shekar Dattatri
23. Mining in prime tiger habitat outside Tadoba tiger reserve Photo: Greenpeace
24. Roads without proper clearances constantly come up in PAs or ESZs Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
25. Road-widening projects without clearances frequently come up in highways through PAs Photo: Suresh G
26. Sarus Cranes in the backdrop of massive construction in Delhi — losing wetland habitat everyday Photo: Delhibird
27. Lakes suffer from poor protection across India. Forest dept. is helpless and usually bullied by other forces for encroachment / development Photo: Vishwatej Pawar
28. Windmills in grasslands and plateaus have come up across India hindering flight paths of birds Photo: Aparna Watve
29. Including India’s rarest bird Photo: Nirav Bhat
30. 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
31. This illegal tree cutting operation was documented by a birding group in Namdapha Tiger Reserve Photo: Bano Haralu
32. Roadkills are a serious conservation threat – a pregnant blackbuck killed by a speeding vehicle in Maharashtra Photo: Adwait Keole
33. The danger of urban roads – here a dead leopard killed by a speeding vehicle on NICE road, Bangalore Photo: Deccan Herald
34. 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
35. A sambhar lays dead on an Odisha highway. Roads are sometimes upgraded without need and the first victims are usually wildlife Photo: Bivash Pandav
36. Small animals die too like this Slender Loris in the Western Ghats Photo: NCF
37. Shy and elusive creatures are more often seen in markets and roadkills Photo: Dr. Pramod Patil
38. Railway tracks pose a significant conservation threat. Every kind of animal – elephant, tiger, lion – have been killed on Indian tracks. Photo: Giri Cavale
39. Animals in human habitation – a fragile “coexistence” Photo: M. Ananda Kumar
40. Olive Ridley Turtles killed in fishing nets Photo: Bivash Pandav
41. Village dogs and turtles – yet another threat for nesting Olive Ridley Turtles in the Odisha coast Photo: Sumit Sen
42. The dangers of village / feral dogs range from competing with wild predators to spreading deadly diseases Photo: Vickey Chauhan
43. 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
44. A Wild dog with a plastic bottle demonstrates littering by tourists – a serious fall-out of tourism. Photo: Mahesh Bhat
45. Critically endangered bustards hiding from tourists in Nannaj, Maharashtra Photo: Dhritiman Mukherjee
46. No caption required! Photo: Ponnambalam
47. Same story. Different location. Tourists and wildlife guides on foot in Kaziranga Photo: Leio D’Souza
48. 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
49. Agriculture is another significant threat to wildlife – in this case to the endangered Wild Ass in the little Rann of Kutch Photo: Nirav Bhat
50. The endangered Lesser Florican displaying in agricultural fields in Saunkhaliya grasslands, Rajasthan Photo: Gobind Sagar Bharadwaj
51. A stark contrast between protected and unprotected areas in Bandipur Tiger Reserve separated by the park boundary Photo: Shekar Dattatri
52. Full-fledged farming Inside the heart of Simlipal – one of India’s largest tiger reserves Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
53. Pushed to the brink in human-dominated landscapes – critically endangered Gangetic Gharials in the fragile Chambal river habitat Photo: Aditya Singh
54. 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
55. This Image highlights human-tiger conflict after two cattle- lifter tigers were poisoned by villagers in retaliation in Ranthambore. Photo: Aditya Singh
56. The typical end to a ‘conflict’ leopard – tranquilized and sent to a zoo or re-released to cause ‘conflict’ elsewhere Photo: Vidya Athreya
57. More conflict – crop-raiding elephants in the plains of Karnataka Photo: Shankara
58. An electrocuted elephant is usually the result of conflict and habitat fragmentation due to plantations Photo: WCS-India
59. Elephant taunting became a sport in Coimbatore forests. This photographer created a campaign that stopped this Photo: Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan
60. This shocking cellphone image of a frenzied mob setting a captured leopard on fire highlights the height of human- leopard conflict Photo: Belinda Wright
61. Large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes Photo: Dharmendra Khandal
62. A freshly killed Grey-sided Thrush shows the sorry state of hunting in Nagaland Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
63. A shocking image of freshly skinned Amur Falcons in Doyang, Nagaland. Lakhs were being hunted annually Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
64. Sometimes multiple images tell a story better. Here are images of bird trapping in Murlen, Mizoram Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan
65. Birdwatchers helped nab waterfowl poachers in Siruthavur near Chennai Photo: Samyak Kaninde
66. Pelican poaching reported from Kanva dam, Channapatna Photo: Seshadri KS
67. Illegally captured parakeet chicks were seized in Palamau tiger reserve in Jharkhand. They were on the way to markets Image: Aditya Panda
68. This is the only record of a Blue Pitta in India – taken in a market in Arunachal Pradesh Photo: Rita Banerji / Dusty Foot
69. A pet Slow Loris in Mokakchung, Nagaland. Most villagers weren’t aware that keeping wildlife as pets was illegal. Photo: Nagaland Biodiversity Project
70. A captive giant squirrel in a coffee estate. The forest department was alerted and hopefully the squirrel is now free. Photo: Amoghavarsha
71. This photographer helped bust a turtle and terrapin trade in Bengali camp market, Raichur, Karnataka Photo: Santosh Martin
72. 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
73. A Clouded Leopard Skin Hangs in a Naga Kitchen Photo: Sandesh Kadur
74. Cattle grazing in protected areas, Satkosia Tiger Reserve, Odisha Photo: Aditya Panda
75. This image depicts the daily plight of forest guards and watchers who are at the frontline of conservation Photo: Jayanth Sharma
76. Thanks!