'Shooting' endangered species to save them
By Zha Minjie |
August 12, 2012, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN he was five years old, Xi Zhinong raised a sparrow hatched from an egg that his playmates had stolen from its nest. The mother wouldn't touch it after humans had handled it.
"I fed it by catching flies until it grew big enough to fly," Xi, now a renowned 48-year-old wildlife photographer, told a recent gathering of pre-school children and their parents at Minsheng Art Museum. Xi also showed slides of China's endangered wildlife, taken over the years.
The story about raising the chick exemplifies Xi's own nurturing spirit that has motivated him to photograph China's endangered species, from golden monkeys to Tibetan antelope, in hopes the pictures would raise public awareness and spur protection.
On the day he spoke to the gathering, Xi wore a camouflage cap and a T-shirt imprinted with a picture of two golden monkeys, "Mother and Son," taken from one of his famous photos. That photo was given to former US President Bill Clinton when he visited China in 1998 as a gift of the Chinese Folk Force for Environmental Protection.
Xi looks like any working man, his face weathered and tanned from years spent in the wilds around China.
For more than two decades he has been carrying heavy gear into China's mountains, forests, jungles and grasslands in search of rare species threatened by the country's hectic expansion and urbanization that eat up habitat. He publicizes his photos and tries to build public pressure on local governments to take protection measures, such as creating wildlife preservation zones. He has also felt the backlash from those who see protectionism as a threat to their commercial developments, logging and profits.
Ten years ago he founded the environmental group Wild China, a nonprofit that aims to "preserve nature through images." He had big plans, but in 2010 the organization was teetering on the brink of collapse for lack of funds. It's struggling today.
"Maybe I'm just not business material and I'm incapable of taking care of all that needs to be done," Xi said. The organization runs on around 300,000 (US$47,166) a year. An outdoor equipment company donated 110,000 yuan, but that "only got us through for a while," he said.
He puts earnings from publication of his photos into Wild China. All these efforts to keep his cause going are "a drop in the ocean," he said.
"Foreign wild life photographers can easily support themselves and their families," Xi said. "It's a whole different picture here in China" where wildlife photography is not mature.
"News photojournalists can feed themselves, not to mention the commercial photographers. But for us? No."
In 2000, Xi received China's highest award for environmental protection, the Earth Award, and in 2001 became the first Chinese winner of Britain's BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award.
Since he started taking pictures at age 20, Xi has shifted his personal focus, nowadays spending less time in the wild and more time reaching out to the public in large-scale education efforts for children, adults and business.
During his recent talk and slide show "My Wildlife Friends," at Minsheng Art Museum, a non-profit organization promoting art and education, Xi vividly described his experience in the field. Wild China volunteers sold T-shirts, like Xi's own, monkey dolls and environmentally friendly shopping bags. Various items are sold on the organization's website and on Taobao.com, the e-commerce platform.
Wild China organizes photography training camps and encouraging people to take pictures and "preserve nature through images." The group can only afford small projects.
Many Chinese photographers and tourists head to Africa today to take wildlife photos, but Xi said he seldom shoots abroad.
"It will have the greatest meaning if we take wildlife pictures here in the motherland," he said. "You will have great pictures in Africa but you might save a rare species in China."
These days he focuses on habitats of the golden snub-nosed monkey, mainly a subspecies living in southeast China's Yunnan Province where it's also called the Yunnan golden monkey. Xi also focuses on the vanishing Tibetan antelope. Years ago he was among the first to document poaching, inspiring volunteers and protection efforts.
Xi is identified internationally with the rare golden snub-nosed monkey, which is on the government's list of endangered species. He has photographed four known species and now is setting out to film a fifth, newly discovered in Yunnan Province and neighboring Myanmar.
He sees both progress - such as the halt to over-logging in some monkey breeding grounds - and new threats, such as flourishing tourism and expanding construction.
"The development of photo technology has given us more opportunities to peek into the life of wildlife," he said. "But it's so painful to see species disappearing."
In a documented three-year period in the mid-1990s, Xi only saw a specific monkey two times.
The picture is depressing, but Xi said, "By loving nature and being patient, there can still be hope."
"I fed it by catching flies until it grew big enough to fly," Xi, now a renowned 48-year-old wildlife photographer, told a recent gathering of pre-school children and their parents at Minsheng Art Museum. Xi also showed slides of China's endangered wildlife, taken over the years.
The story about raising the chick exemplifies Xi's own nurturing spirit that has motivated him to photograph China's endangered species, from golden monkeys to Tibetan antelope, in hopes the pictures would raise public awareness and spur protection.
On the day he spoke to the gathering, Xi wore a camouflage cap and a T-shirt imprinted with a picture of two golden monkeys, "Mother and Son," taken from one of his famous photos. That photo was given to former US President Bill Clinton when he visited China in 1998 as a gift of the Chinese Folk Force for Environmental Protection.
Xi looks like any working man, his face weathered and tanned from years spent in the wilds around China.
For more than two decades he has been carrying heavy gear into China's mountains, forests, jungles and grasslands in search of rare species threatened by the country's hectic expansion and urbanization that eat up habitat. He publicizes his photos and tries to build public pressure on local governments to take protection measures, such as creating wildlife preservation zones. He has also felt the backlash from those who see protectionism as a threat to their commercial developments, logging and profits.
Ten years ago he founded the environmental group Wild China, a nonprofit that aims to "preserve nature through images." He had big plans, but in 2010 the organization was teetering on the brink of collapse for lack of funds. It's struggling today.
"Maybe I'm just not business material and I'm incapable of taking care of all that needs to be done," Xi said. The organization runs on around 300,000 (US$47,166) a year. An outdoor equipment company donated 110,000 yuan, but that "only got us through for a while," he said.
He puts earnings from publication of his photos into Wild China. All these efforts to keep his cause going are "a drop in the ocean," he said.
"Foreign wild life photographers can easily support themselves and their families," Xi said. "It's a whole different picture here in China" where wildlife photography is not mature.
"News photojournalists can feed themselves, not to mention the commercial photographers. But for us? No."
In 2000, Xi received China's highest award for environmental protection, the Earth Award, and in 2001 became the first Chinese winner of Britain's BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award.
Since he started taking pictures at age 20, Xi has shifted his personal focus, nowadays spending less time in the wild and more time reaching out to the public in large-scale education efforts for children, adults and business.
During his recent talk and slide show "My Wildlife Friends," at Minsheng Art Museum, a non-profit organization promoting art and education, Xi vividly described his experience in the field. Wild China volunteers sold T-shirts, like Xi's own, monkey dolls and environmentally friendly shopping bags. Various items are sold on the organization's website and on Taobao.com, the e-commerce platform.
Wild China organizes photography training camps and encouraging people to take pictures and "preserve nature through images." The group can only afford small projects.
Many Chinese photographers and tourists head to Africa today to take wildlife photos, but Xi said he seldom shoots abroad.
"It will have the greatest meaning if we take wildlife pictures here in the motherland," he said. "You will have great pictures in Africa but you might save a rare species in China."
These days he focuses on habitats of the golden snub-nosed monkey, mainly a subspecies living in southeast China's Yunnan Province where it's also called the Yunnan golden monkey. Xi also focuses on the vanishing Tibetan antelope. Years ago he was among the first to document poaching, inspiring volunteers and protection efforts.
Xi is identified internationally with the rare golden snub-nosed monkey, which is on the government's list of endangered species. He has photographed four known species and now is setting out to film a fifth, newly discovered in Yunnan Province and neighboring Myanmar.
He sees both progress - such as the halt to over-logging in some monkey breeding grounds - and new threats, such as flourishing tourism and expanding construction.
"The development of photo technology has given us more opportunities to peek into the life of wildlife," he said. "But it's so painful to see species disappearing."
In a documented three-year period in the mid-1990s, Xi only saw a specific monkey two times.
The picture is depressing, but Xi said, "By loving nature and being patient, there can still be hope."
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