WILDSpeak 2016: Sandesh Kadur

The International League Of Conservation Photographers brings together numerous presenters each year at the WILDspeak Symposium where speakers explore how photography and video are impacting conservation efforts around the globe. This year’s event is November 15 & 16, 2016, in Washington D.C., and Sandesh Kadur will be on hand to discuss his work documenting the “unnamed species, primeval cultures and the promise of magical cures that can heal all of humanity” of India’s Himalaya and the Western Ghats mountain ranges in the program, India’s Mountains Of Life.

An award-winning wildlife photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, Sandesh Kadur uses his skills and talents to raise awareness of the need to protect the world’s biodiversity. Over the past two decades, his focus has been bringing light to regions of India that are relatively unfamiliar to the public. “Sahyadris: India’s Western Ghats – A Vanishing Heritage” was his first published book, and it helped get the Western Ghats declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 2013, Kadur completed a five-year project documenting the Eastern Himalaya. This work was compiled into a book titled, Himalaya: Mountains of Life, where he illustrates the importance of preserving this landscape. It was also in 2013 that the National Geographic Society named him an Emerging Explorer and he received the NANPA Vision Award from the North American Nature Photographers, which is given to up-and-coming photographer to recognize their outstanding work in the nature photography field. He’s received numerous other top awards over his career as well.

Currently, Kadur is following up on the Eastern Himalaya project with one on the Western/Trans-Himalaya wilderness, as well as working on a documentary about the elusive felines of India, of which he says is, “a project close to my heart and something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

He’s also busy creating still photography and natural history documentaries that focus on conservation with his team at Felis Creations, a media and visual arts company he founded a few years ago.

But it’s the Himalaya and the Western Ghats that Kadur will be discussing at this year’s WILDSpeak event. “At the Wildspeak Symposium, I’d like to focus my attention on the importance of mountains in sustaining life,” he explains. “Not only do these mountains harbor an incredible assemblage of plants and animals, these mountains are also the source of all major rivers across India, which support over a billion people. Which inversely (or is it conversely) means, a billion people need the mountains for their survival, but are they willing to fight for it?”

To learn more about Sandesh Kadur and to view his work, visit www.sandeshkadur.com.

WiLDspeak—A Symposium on Photography, Conservation & Communications
November 15 & 16, 2016
Carnegie Institution for Science
1530 P Street, NW Washington D.C. 20005
conservationphotographers.org/wildspeak2016