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| © Gary Braasch (top) / Courtesy H. Sluptzky/University of Salzburg/Gary Braasch (bottom) |
| Austria's Pasterze Glacier in 2004 (top) and 1875 (bottom). |
One of the things I like about my job is the way it allows me to pick up random facts about a variety of subjects, from art history and world politics to rock and roll. Sometimes the information I learn is trivial, sometimes it's not.
Here are some of the things I learned while working on this special issue about photography and the environment:
1. Shark populations worldwide are down as much as 89 percent.
2. Lion populations in Africa have dropped from about 50,000 in the early 1980s to less than 23,000 today.
3. Elephant populations in Africa have dropped from 300,000 in the early 1970s to some 10,000 now.
My education has not been limited to wildlife. There is also the issue of global warming. I recently came across a report by ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore about a NASA study showing that even moderate additional greenhouse emissions are likely to push the Earth past "critical tipping points" leading to "disastrous effects" in just ten years. Those facts took on greater urgency when I saw images from photographers like Gary Braasch, who is documenting melting glaciers around the world (as seen in the dramatic juxtaposition at right).
Over the past several months I have seen just how powerful photographs can be at illustrating abstracted facts about the environment. And I have learned how powerfully committed the photography community is to the cause of preserving natural resources. To be sure, photographers have long used their craft to document the fragility of nature. William Henry Jackson, Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, and others followed "the conservationist impulse."
That phrase is not mine; it belongs to photographer James Balog, who contributed the introduction to our special portfolio. Balog is part of a movement in which nature photographers are mixing art and activism to help save the planet. This movement is widespread, but we represent it in this issue with the work of members of a new organization, the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP). Founded in 2005 by environmental activist and photographer Cristina Mittermeier, the organization aims to bring photographers together with scientists and politicians to document threats to the natural world and to agitate for solutions. The images you'll find in this issue are just a small part of the visual evidence that ILCP members are compiling. The pictures, often beautiful, are nonetheless warning signs that these photographers insist we pay attention to.
In a sense, this new brand of nature photography isn't new at all. And in a broader sense, it shouldn't be construed strictly as nature photography. It is in fact a variation on another traditionÑthat of the "concerned photographer." Usually that term is applied to photographers whose focus is on humanitarian ideals. I wonder if we should any longer make the distinction between those goals and the goals of concerned nature photographers. As Michael K. "Nick" Nichols notes, it is useless and ultimately wrong to follow a line of thinking that makes adversaries of men and animals. "We know that when we can stabilize an area of nature, we also help stabilize that place politically," he says. "Everyone and everything can win." Nature photographers are working to save more than sharks, lions, and elephants. They're working to save all of us.
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