May 1, 2008, Arlington, VA.
INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION PHOTOGRAPHERS HOSTS RAVE EVENT IN THE WYOMING RANGE AND THE RED DESERT
The International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP), is a not-for-profit organization that includes some of the world's best nature photographers. Our mission is to further conservation through the use of ethical, credible photography.
In 2007, ILCP trademarked the term, RAVE. A RAVE is a photo-documentary expedition led by members of ILCP to areas that need immediate conservation actions. When ILCP conducts a RAVE-Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition-it employs the RAVE as a tool to shed light on pressing conservation issues, bringing them to the attention of the media in the form of compelling images.
ILCP has conducted three successful international RAVEs. In Mexico, the El Triunfo RAVE created considerable local media and citizen interest and raised $500,000 through local events to protect a unique cloud forest environment; the Balandra RAVE helped to achieve the protection of more than 2,100 hectares of estuarine habitat in Baja; the Bioko RAVE on a large island in the small African nation of Equatorial Guinea. The RAVE helped Conservation International negotiate an agreement the government to develop a long range conservation infrastructure and to strengthen the ban on primate hunting enforcement in Bioko. The Bioko RAVE will be featured in National Geographic Magazine in their August edition.
The ILCP Wyoming Range/Red Desert RAVE will be the first RAVE to take place
in the United States. Between 10 and 20 of the world's best known nature photographers, including David Doubilet, Jack Dykinga, Robert Glenn Ketchum and Thomas Mangelsen, will convene in Jackson, Wyoming on May 19th to stage the RAVE and present the finished work on Friday, May 23, as a one-month-long exhibition at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. The exhibit is sponsored by Earthjustice, in partnership with Rich Clarkson's Photography at the Summit Workshops. Students in the Conservation Photography Summit Workshop will have the opportunity to accompany the ILCP photographers on certain legs of the RAVE. Their work will be featured alongside ILCP images in the final exhibit.
In the last eight years, the energy industry has been allowed to developed oil and gas reserves in the Rocky Mountains and western desert canyonlands, constructing extraction complexes and supportive road systems upon some of the most significant wild lands left in North America. One of the largest of these developed sites is the Jonah field, near Pinedale, Wyoming, situated quite literally at the foot of the Wind River Mountains, one of the most beautiful ranges in the Rockies. The complex of wells and roads impacts significant wildlife corridors, pristine water resources such as the Upper Green River Basin and fragile habitats of indigenous and endangered species such as the sage grouse. Pinedale now has severe air quality problems, actually experiencing smoggy days at the foot of the Wind Rivers equivalent to cities like Los Angeles and Houston, and recently after an EPA ruling to reduce ozone concentrations in the area, the Bush administration intervened and actually increased the limit allowable. Additionally, the gas wells are created using a controversial technique called fracturing. Fracturing fissures underground rock to allow access to the gas reserves but very often the fracturing also alters other rock layers, many times allowing the contaminants involved in the drilling to move between rock layers and pollute groundwater aquifers.
In what appears to be one last gift to their friends in the industry, the administration would now like to expand these oil and gas developments into the Wyoming Range, north of the Jonah field, and into the Red Desert to the south, both of these regions being well established as areas of undisturbed and significant wild habitat some parts of which have been recommended for Federal protection.
The Wyoming Range is notable elk habitat, and supports considerable populations of mule deer, moose, pronghorn antelope and numerous smaller mammal and avian species. For those in Jackson, it is also considered their recreational "backyard" and snowmelt from the range is a significant part of the watershed and underground aquifer supply for several large rural valleys that depend on recreational tourism, hunting and agriculture.
The 6 million-acre Red Desert (slightly larger than Vermont) is home to over 350 different species of animals, including the largest migratory game herd in the lower 48 states (pronghorn antelope) and the largest desert elk herd in the world. It also has the largest active inland dune system in North America. The Red Desert contains many areas that have been recommended for protection or wilderness status.
With this Wyoming Range/Red Desert RAVE, ILCP hopes to increase media and public attention on these remarkable areas, and in so doing prevent the destruction of PUBLIC lands and resources (water, agriculture, wildlife) that may have a more significant long term value than is currently being considered. Since oil and gas development began, the pronghorn migration has diminished significantly, and the newest proposals suggest an additional 4, 400 wells/roads are to be developed.
ILCP welcomes further media contact and support on this project, please contact:
Jenny Nichols - jenny@ilcp.com 703.341.2707
ILCP would also like to note, we are aware of the wide common use of the term RAVE and do not expect to "enforce" our trademark, however, for those that work with us, please know that ONLY A RAVE WITH ILCP ENDORSEMENT will guarantee the highest quality photographic images AND the ethical practices and disclosures of our Fellows within the League. Please do not accept lesser projects attempting to co-opt our RAVE success and visibility. We want you to help us and be part
of the amazing and effective network we have created and hope to grow into a significant force in conservation advocacy.
INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION PHOTOGRAPHERS
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