CPNZ Blog

Flying with swans

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Sacha Dent is a conservationist who takes extreme measures to get close to the subject of her research and conservation efforts.

She improved her free diving and won the Australian free diving championships to get closer to marine turtles.

In 2016, she overcame a powerful fear of flying to fly a paramotor 7000km across 11 countries to track the migrating Bewick’s Swan across the Russian tundra to the UK.

Interviewed by Kim Hill on RNZ in September 2020, she explained that the benefits of using a motorised wing as part of her work gradually became apparent. She was able to photograph conservation wetlands while tracking migratory birds, taking striking images.

“It was realising actually the power motor would get me to do amazing things for conservation. That’s I suppose why I stuck at it, but it took me really about five years before being completely comfortable.”

Read the RNZ write up and find the link to the interview here.

Sacha Dent, an award-winning conservationist, adventurer and UN ambassador for Migratory Species, founded Conservation without Borders, which brings people from different walks of life together to uncover problems, find solutions, and to record and share them through powerful, inspiring imagery and story. 

“We work with innovators and change-makers, whoever and wherever, big or small, to drive global change.”

Sacha Dent flying with Bewick’s swans
Photo Credit: Angharad Barlow

“Photography has now become an essential tool for conservation”

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From the IUCN’s Save Our Species website.

“Stunning images captured by Nathalie Houdin and Denis Palanque documenting the shift from conflict to harmony in this livestock farming landscape won second prize in the category Man and Nature during the Terre Sauvage Nature Image Awards (NIA) 2016.

“But it also won the IUCN Bourse for its powerful conservation storytelling quality: the objective of the Karoo Predator Project is to understand the ecology and political-economy of predation and to explore ways of protecting biodiversity whilst ensuring sustainable livelihoods. Terre Sauvage Magazine interviewed Nathalie and Denis about the evolution in their photography work as conservation photographers”

You can read the interview, translated from French, here.

The biodiversity in the Karoo area of South Africa includes caracals, medium sized wild cats, that prey on small mammals, birds and rodents – and livestock when prey is scarce.

Denis and Nathalie responded to the question – what role can photography play in promoting a conservation culture?

“We believe that photography has now become an essential tool for conservation. We live in a world that consumes a lot of images. And photography is a powerful medium capable of building a strong and lasting link between, on the one hand, the general public and, on the other, scientists and their sometimes very technical research.

“A series of powerful images can be more influential than a report or graphic. It resonates with our senses. A photograph can remain in the memory for a very long time, often more than words! If it is necessary to talk about an important cause or to raise awareness of a conservation problem, the image becomes a formidable tool for raising awareness.

“To our minds, all nature photographers should be involved in conservation. When we see the degradation of our ecosystems, we can no longer remain bystanders. The photographer must become an actor for change and put his art at the service of protecting and preserving the subject he loves so much – nature. This is essential for our future.“

In essence, two things merged

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Conservation and photography appear as two distinct fields, but their combined impact can be profound. Simply put, conservation photography is photography that empowers or enables conservation.

According to the acclaimed photographer, Joel Sartore, “the typical nature photograph shows a butterfly on a pretty flower. The conservation photograph shows the same thing, but with a bulldozer coming at it in the background. This doesn’t mean there’s no room for beautiful pictures, in fact we need beautiful images just as much as the issues. It does mean that the images exist for a reason; to save the Earth while we still can.”

National Geographic has a campaign and provides funding for the recovery of species on the brink of extinction. They aim to halt further biodiversity decline by implementing conservation plans for species and groups of species.

The header photograph, copied below, is by Joel Sartore.