PHOTOGRAPHY AND BIODIVERSITY AWARENESS: The use of images in conservation

Abstract

Since its inception, photography has played an important role as a documentary tool. It has been used to communicate and disseminate biodiversity research and conservation projects in different parts of the world. Today, the extraordinary technological development and popularity of photography has allowed it to be used to collect data for different types of scientific projects and to facilitate a much more fluid exchange of information between the scientific community and the public, for example in citizen science programmes. However, a paradigm shift is now being proposed for photography to move beyond its purely artistic sense to reveal its informative and knowledge-generating potential in the field of conservation.