Nick Brandt is a wildlife photographer and animal conservationist. His work is driven by his love of animals and his desire to showcase endangered animals before they disappear forever.
His most recent photographs, in a collection titled “Inherit the Dust”, depict panels showing big African mammals in their natural settings, placed in areas where animals used to roam and no longer do because of human development. The contrast between the photographs on the panels and the surrounding destruction is stark, and heartbreaking.
The Guardian published a selection of the photographs along with quotes from the photobook Brandt has published about these works.
“Brandt is behind the anti-poaching initiative Big Life, but he says their protection will be worth nothing without a fight against climate change. ‘Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be one of the world’s worst-hit areas as the impacts of climate change escalate … many of the poor will have no choice but to take what depleted natural resources remain to stay alive.
‘The fossil fuel industry and their beneficiaries in the United States continue to wilfully disregard the overwhelming scientific consensus on manmade climate change. Their greed and obstructionism, and deliberate dissemination of misinformation, is allowing, and will allow, many millions of people and animals to suffer and die, probably for centuries to come. For me, these people are to be viewed as terrorists.'”
As we continue to destroy ecosystems in our never ending quest to extract resources from this Earth, we not only destroy the great species depicted in Nick Brandt’s photographs, we ultimately destroy ourselves.
To see more photographs from Inherit the Dust, visit Nick’s web site or read The Guardian article.
Be forewarned: all of these images are utterly heartbreaking. But we cannot turn away from reality if we are to do something about it.
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