The Environment Connection

Our weekly editorial from OP's editors, columnists and contributors

September 11, 2006

I admit it. I’m addicted to being in beautiful natural scenes and spending time photographing there. But it’s an addiction that I don’t want to cure.

It seems, however, that there are some folks who want to do some sort of intervention on my behalf. Well, maybe I’m taking that too personally, as it seems to be directed toward anyone who spends a lot of time in the outdoors.

I’m referring to politicians who want to oversell and exploit our country’s investments in great natural locations. Plus, they want to cut funding to the very places that display them, such as national parks, resulting in those locations creating higher entrance fees and more restrictions for photographers. That’s one way of curing an addiction, making it harder to get at what you need to satisfy it.

I don’t get it, though. Caring about our natural world and what happensto it used to be a bipartisan effort. When I was in college during the early’70s, the environment was very important. Richard Nixon signed into law, and enforced those laws, many of the key environmental laws we rely on to this day. Even though most Americans care deeply about our natural world, our present administration is uninterested in it. And certain politicians, most notably Congressman Richard Pombo from California, seem determined to undermine environmental laws (also known for wanting to privatize national parks; the Defenders of Wildlife has an interesting Website related to him, www.pombointheirpocket.org).

Okay, I’m selfish. I want to be able to go into a national park and freely photograph there. I want to be able to find attractive natural areas near my home that I can enjoy for the nature and photography. I don’t want to find dying forests due to global warming or acid rain. I don’t want to discover that certain animals are now gone as possibilities for photography because of shortsighted development. I’m selfish for wanting a world with opportunities for everyone to enjoy nature and not just rich developers who want to create houses, hotels, etc., that limit the use of that land and affect the life there.

I know that there are some nature photographers who don’t want to get involved. They just “want to photograph.” I don’t see how that’s possible, though. I have a new book (short commercial message), The Magic of Digital Nature Photography. While most of the book is about photographing nature, the last chapter is “A Message from Our Sponsor”—about the need for photographers to be concerned for the nature we all photograph.

I’m concerned. I really don’t want the pain of withdrawal from my addiction to the joys of wild nature. I highly recommend connecting with organizations that support protecting our world when it needs protecting (and the following list is far from complete, just some ideas), such as the Defenders of Wildlife (www.defenders.org), the Audubon Society (www.audubon.org), the National Wildlife Federation (www.nwf.org) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org).

Rob Sheppard