Photographers Against Wildlife Crime

When I first met today’s guest I was a fresh-faced Conservation Biology undergraduate student with hopes and dreams of doing my bit to save the planet. Britta Jaschinski seemed like some kind of rock star to me. She spoke of going undercover at wildlife markets with cameras stashed in her handbag, using her photography to break apart wildlife crime rings and had strong morals she obviously lived by. I wanted to be just like her!

Artwork by Jasmine Hortop

CRIME

I got the chance to spend more time working with Britta and her amazing photography after the charity I was working for at the time gave her a grant to cover a story on wildlife confiscation areas at airports, which was later entitled ‘CRIME’. The photographs she produced were genuinely spellbinding - artistic and powerful. I’d never seen anything like them before and I’ve been following her career since. I attended a talk at a photography festival where she made pretty much every single person in the room cry - her presence and storytelling abilities really are second to none.

Update from me:

Having been away from home for the past 8 months, I’m now back in the extremely rainy UK for the foreseeable future. It’s really strange seeing all of the ecosystems and species I’ve been campaigning for from afar after a long time as they seem like quasi celebrities that I’ve only ever seen in photographs, which is a very strange feeling.

For our listeners who aren’t in the UK and don’t follow the news, it was uncovered over the past couple of years that we don’t have any rivers that are currently in ‘good’ condition which, as a keen wild swimmer, is incredibly troubling. The fact that water companies are pumping sewage into our freshwater ecosystems, agricultural chemicals are leaching in with every spray and even more after rainfall, and, of course, soil erosion and a bunch of other horrible stuff too, has caused our rivers to become an environmental catastrophe. Adding to that, our government has just decided to reopen licensing for new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, essentially sh***ing all over its climate ‘promises’. Suffice it to say, I’m not happy. Neither is anyone in my community which, actually, is filling me with the (non-fossil) fuel I need to feel like I might be able to contribute my voice and energy towards the kind of collective power that actually gets stuff done. It’s amazing what having a community of like-minded, pro-active environmentalists can do for you when you’re in moments of despair.

There’s a lot of really bad things going on, but humanity can definitely replenish as well as diminish your hope for the future. I think it’s easy to forget that sometimes. So, my takeaway message from this week’s episode and my first week back in the UK is to surround yourself with people who give a damn and join forces to create positive change. There’s loads of examples of that happening around the world, and your story might be the next to join them.

This week’s hot topics that Matt and Hannah discussed on our Instagram Live Producer’s Chat included:

After our last episode with Elizabeth Kolbert, the news of the Controversial carbon removal technology just got $1.2 billion from the Biden administration seemed strangely timely. Hannah hadn’t even heard the words ‘carbon removal technology’ before she finally opened her mind to geo-engineering having listened to the last episode, and was surprised to see this article in the news so shortly after. She wasn’t surprised; however, to discover that the company running the carbon capture were a petroleum corporation. Could the world not have chosen a more trustworthy climate change hero?

Matt’s deep-dive into the Pleistocene extinction conundrum continued as new research was published, uncovering that Ancient Fires Drove Large Mammals Extinct, Study Suggests. AKA - it’s looking like the 6th mass extinction started in this area when humans set a bunch of fires that got out of control. Sounds strangely familiar?

Hannah ended us on a high, discussing the fantastic news that Ecuadorians vote to halt oil drilling in biodiverse Amazonian national park. A landmark law for climate and land justice, and a huge middle finger to the fossil fuel industry. Love to see it!

As always, thanks for listening, and if you have any comments or feedback on today’s episode or the podcast in general we’d love to hear from you! Send us a DM on our Instagram or Facebook.

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