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The tragedy of the nature photography commons

Abstract

Over the last few decades, photography has become a crucial tool in the mainstreaming of biodiversity and its conservation. Today, it would be almost impossible to find any conservation outreach or marketing materials that do not include at least a few photographs. This em-phasis on photographic material is well justified, as there is evidence that photographs can have an important im-pact in our perceptions, attitudes and even behaviour to-wards nature (Kalof, Zammit-Lucia and Kelly 2011; Myers Jr., 2006). Examples of this are the efforts of the Sierra Club to establish some of the world’s first pro-tected areas in the USA; National Geographic’s coverage of the “Megatransect” trek by ecologist Michael Fay across the Congo basin; or the recent media reports on the large scale killing of Amur Falcons in the of Nagaland, India (Dalvi and Sreenivasan, 2012; Myers Jr., 2006). Such encouraging outcomes have lead to the creation of the field of “conservation photography” and to the forma-tion of organizations such as the International League of Conservation Photographers, who work specifically to disseminate the need for biodiversity conservation (Myers Jr., 2006

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