International League of
Conservation Photographers
Visit the full ILCP website >>>
Help make a RAVE happen! >>>
The International League of Conservation
Photographers was established during the
8th World
Wilderness Congress in Alaska, October 2005. Founder and
first Executive Director, Cristina Mittermeier is on WILD’s
Board of Directors, and WILD is honored to be the host and
organizational sponsor for this rapidly growing network of
some of the world’s very best photographers, dedicated to
protecting and sustaining the wild nature with which they
work daily.
Just one of ILCP’s projects is the
RAVE (Rapid Assessment
Visual Expedition). RAVE is a new, innovative concept
co-developed by Patricio Robles Gil and the International
League of Conservation Photographers to address a specific
need in conservation. Scientific expeditions – such as the
RAP (Rapid Assessment Project) developed by our colleagues
at Conservation International -- are critically important
but usually lack a compelling communications aspect. RAVEs
will develop a poignant and attractive communication
campaign that raises awareness and action on behalf of
specific, threatened wild areas. RAVE aims to achieve this
full visual and media assessment in a short period of time,
through an expedition into a threatened ecosystem with a
multi-disciplined team including several specialized
photographers (landscape, wildlife, macro, camera traps),
writers and videographers.
The first Rave was done in April, 2007, in El Triunfo
Biosphere Reserve (Chiapas, Mexico).
Read the
summary report, or view a slide show of images from the first RAVE. (Images courtesy of Patricio Robles-Gil, Jaime
Rojo, Patricia Rojo, Thomas Mangelsen, Florian Schulz,
Fluvio Eccardi, Jack Dykinga)
The RAVE idea has taken off! The second was to
Balandra, in
Baja California, with ILCP and local photographers, and a
Time magazine writer. Initial results confirm that the
development threats to this pristine area have been stopped
because of the RAVE. The most recent RAVE, January 2008,
took place in Bioko, an island off of Equatorial Guinea.
Bioko wildlife includes nine species of primates, seven of
which are endemic, all of which are critically threatened
due to the bush meat trade. Read the
ILCP newsletter summary of the Bioko RAVE.
Cristina Goettsch
Mittermeier
 The
relationship between nature and humans is where
Cristina Mittermeier’s photography finds its true
mission. The idea that people and nature are not
isolated from each other, but are inexorably
connected, lies at the heart of her work. This
relationship is particularly poignant when it comes
to indigenous people and this where Cristina’s
images truly shine. Her work has taken her to 54
countries, including some of the most remote and
beautiful areas of our planet.
For Cristina, photography did not come as a first
career choice. A marine biologist by training and a
regular contributor to the scientific dialogue on
the conservation of our planet’s biodiversity,
Cristina’s work initially strived to explain with
science the importance of preserving Earth’s living
heritage. The need to communicate to a larger
audience and to portray the intimate link between
people and their environment propelled her to find
new tools to express herself. Photography has
allowed her to tell an emotional story that links
the devastating effects of biodiversity loss and
human well-being. More importantly, her images aim
to demonstrate that people can and should coexist
harmoniously with nature.
As a photographer and writer since 1996, Cristina
has co-edited 8 books, including a series published
with Conservation International and Cemex.
Megadiversity: Earth's Wealthiest Countries for
Biodiversity (1996), Hotspots: Earth's biologically
richest and most endangered ecoregions (1998),
Wilderness Areas: Earth's Last Wild Places (2002),
Wildlife Spectacles (2003), Hotspots Revisited
(2005), and Transboundary Conservation: A New Vision
for Protected Areas (2005), and Pantanal: South
America’s Wetland Jewel (2005) are all part of that
series. Her latest book project, The Human Footprint
was produced with the Wildlife Conservation Society
in New York in conjunction with her own
organization, the ILCP.
From the popular to the scientific, her work has
been featured in major magazines around the world
including Nature's Best, Latina, Elan, National
Geographic and National Geographic Explorer in the
United States, Rumbos, Escala and Sale la Foto, in
Mexico, Explorador and Terra in Brazil, Man and
Biosphere in China, among others.
Cristina serves in the Advisory Board of Nature's
Best Magazine, is a Board Member of the WILD
Foundation and a member of Conservation
International’s Chairman’s Council. She is also the
Executive Director of the International League of
Conservation Photographers (ILCP), a prestigious
consortium of some of the best photographers in the
world.
Born and raised in sunny Mexico, Cristina now makes
her home in Great Falls, Virginia, where she and her
husband Russ Mittermeier, President of Conservation
International, are raising their two children,
Michael (14) and Juliana (10). An older child, John
(21) is an undergraduate student at Yale University.
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