Bengaluru:
It's World Wildlife Week, and for many city dwellers, the closest they come to wildlife are stunning images in photographs, as photographers play an extremely important role in wildlife conservation. India's handsome national animal, the tiger, is certainly a superb brand ambassador for the conservation of Indian wildlife.
Bittu Sahgal, Founding Editor of Sanctuary Magazine, told NDTV, "For all the criticism that people throw towards tigers and tiger photographers, the fact is that the tiger is the finest and most easily sold brand in the world. The tiger is a metaphor. So when we ask for the tiger to be saved, a little cub and a mother - we are basically asking for everything, including the tick on the tiger's back to be saved."
Others believe that wildlife images have an instant connection with people.
Vijay Mohan Raj, Chief Conservator of Forests, Karnataka said, "The best part of seeing an image is you feel proud that you are trying to protect these things... it makes a connections so quickly... A single image can send the message clearly and strongly."
Many conservation efforts, like stopping hunting of the Amur falcon in Nagaland has been helped by images of their slaughter.
Bano Haralu of the Nagaland Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation Trust told NDTV, "Definitely, the images played a very, very big part...when we communicated with the people in the villages, especially the fishermen, they were also astounded to see how much hunting was going on... the scale of hunting that was going on was something they had not experienced... The images also brought pressure on the authorities to intervene."
Wildlife photographer Sudhir Shivaram spoke of the power of the image. "If you see an image then you will get to know what it takes to save that animal. Instead of trying to convey the message through long text, one small image is more powerful than a lot of blog writing or any of those things, he said.
Can pictures really help with the conservation effort? The experiences of these people definitely says, yes they can.