The Environmental Justice Atlas or EJAtlas of the Autonomous University of Barcelona collected 2330 data sheets on ecological distribution conflicts from all over the world. On average, one more case is added per day.

The sheer size of our database makes new studies possible on the actors in such conflicts and their forms of mobilisation, on the deaths of activists in these conflicts or on the factors that lead to failure or success in achieving environmental justice.

Social studies can be done on the various cultural expressions such as banners, documentaries and songs used in the various struggles for environmental justice.  

Smelting and refining

What we see is that these conflicts are exposing value system contests. For instance, if a river is polluted or a forest destroyed by open cast mining, financial compensation may be a way out for the company responsible but other valuation languages (biodiversity, the “rights of nature”, the livelihood of local populations, indigenous territorial rights, sacredness) will then be sacrificed.

Money cannot compensate for all such loses. The language of economics (and of monetary cost-benefit analysis) is powerful but it is not always powerful enough. 

Why do so many “ecological distribution conflicts” (as recorded in the EJAtlas) arise? This is  because of the growth and changes of the flows of energy and materials in the economy.

We call those flows the “metabolism” of the global economy. For instance, coal mining leads to conflicts along the whole “commodity chain”, from mining to transport to burning in coal fired power plants producing pollutants and excessive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Another example is the increase in bauxite mining, that causes conflicts in mining, in smelting and refining of aluminum, in the process of creating electricity for that and when leaving “red mud” as waste.

Unsustainable economies

Some famous conflicts, such as in the Niyamgiri Hill in Odisha in India against the Vedanta company, exemplify the power of the value of sacredness and the power of indigenous territorial rights against the power of money.

In this particular case, the power of the local people turned out to be bigger than the power of a 7 billion dollar investment. 

Changes in the social metabolism lead to conflicts, which are then expressed in different valuation languages. Ecological and economic distribution conflicts are not the same.

Economists claim that all externalities just need to be internalised in the price, but reality shows that not everything has a price tag.

The circuit from changes in social metabolism to ecological distribution conflicts to environmental justice networks and movements, and to transitions to less unsustainable economies and societies, is depicted in Fig.1.

For instance, more coal for electricity production causes conflicts at different scales and may give rise to movements for “leaving coal in the hole”.

Monetary compensation

If such movements are successful, the economy will be more environmentally sustainable. More windmills or more dams might be built instead to substitute for coal fired power plants but this in turn sometimes gives rise to conflicts over land rights and water rights.

From the point of view of governments and business, economic growth and profits demand an expanding or changing “metabolism of the economy”.

As solution to the conflicts this creates, they propose improved Corporate Social Responsibility. This sometimes works in the West or in China, where “eco-compensation” is used to keep the population quiet despite damages from land grabbing and the extractive industries.

Less conflictivity is good for business and for economic growth, it allows more mining and more fossil fuel extraction to take place.

But in most places, no amount of monetary compensation will prevent a conflict from taking place, simply because people have non-monetary social values as well.

Value systems

That may be hard to believe in the boardrooms of companies traded on the stock market, or in the minds of  economists – but it’s the reality and it explains the rising number of ecological distribution conflicts, in parallel to the rising number of tonnes of materials extracted in the world.

From the point of view of the environmental movement, we take a positive view of ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability.

In the EJAtlas we find that almost 20 per cent of conflicts end with success for environmental justice, often meaning projects stopped.

More conflicts mean less mining, less plunder of biomass and less fossil fuel extraction. Networks are formed and new words invented to express the new fights, such as Blockadia.

The slogan that “water is more valuable than gold” is only untrue if we consider the value as the price per kilogram – but it is true in the sense that there are other value systems apart from money pricing.

So when a religious leader like Pope Francis accepted an invitation to hold up a t-shirt with that slogan, it was because he supported the view that some values of water are not counted in money. He and the vast majority in the world know that – it is the psychopaths steering our economy into the abyss who don’t get it. 

This Author

Joan Martinez Alier is an eminent and award wining professor in ecological economy and a globally recognised specialist on environmental justice. Martinez-Alier works at ICTA-UAB, Barcelona. He wrote this contribution in his capacity as the coordinator of the European Research Council funded EnvJustice Project.

Imagine that spring has finally arrived and you’re planning your weekend. The weather forecast looks great. You could go to the beach – but what if it’s closed because of an algal bloom? Maybe you could go for a hike – will the leaves be out yet? What might be in flower? Will the migratory birds be back? Oh, and you heard last year was bad for ticks – will this spring be better or worse?

We all take weather forecasts for granted, so why isn’t there a ‘nature forecast’ to answer these questions? Enter the new scientific field of ecological forecasting. Ecologists have long sought to understand the natural world, but only recently have they begun to think systematically about forecasting.

Much of the current research in ecological forecasting is focused on long-term projections. It considers questions that play out over decades to centuries, such as how species may shift their ranges in response to climate change, or whether forests will continue to take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

However, in a new article that I co-authored with 18 other scientists from universities, private research institutes and the U.S. Geological Survey, we argue that focusing on near-term forecasts over spans of days, seasons and years will help us better understand, manage and conserve ecosystems. Developing this ability would be a win-win for both science and society.

The benefits of forecasting

Beyond helping people plan their weekends, ecological forecasts will improve decision-making in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and other industries. They will help private landowners, local governments and state and federal agencies better manage and conserve our land, water and coastlines, for example by warning of events such as pest outbreaks and harmful algal blooms. They will improve public health through better forecasts of infectious disease outbreaks and better planning in anticipation of famine, wildfire and other natural disasters.

Ecological forecasts will also deepen our understanding of the world around us, and of how human activities are altering it. Forecasting formalizes the cycle between prediction and testing that is at the heart of the scientific method, and repeats it on a much quicker cycle. It can accelerate the pace of discovery in the environmental sciences at this critical time of rapid environmental change.

New tools and technology

Big data is driving many of the advances in ecological forecasting. Today ecologists have orders of magnitude more data compared to just a decade ago, thanks to sustained public funding for basic science and environmental monitoring. This investment has given us better sensors, satellites and organizations such as the National Ecological Observatory Network, which collects high-quality data from 81 field sites across the United States and Puerto Rico. At the same time, cultural shifts across funding agencies, research networks and journals have made that data more open and available.

Digital technologies make it possible to access this information more quickly than in the past. Field notebooks have given way to tablets and cell networks that can stream new data into supercomputers in real time. Computing advances allow us to build better models and use more sophisticated statistical methods to produce forecasts.

Technical and social challenges

So far, though, ecological forecasting has not kept pace with advances in data and technology. In our article, we lay out a road map for accelerating the field by tackling the bottlenecks slowing us down.

Some of these bottlenecks are technical, such as better integrating the streams of data that are now available from many different sources, such as field studies, sensor networks and satellite observations.

Other challenges involve human choices. Ecologists need to spend more time engaged in two-way communication with stakeholders, rather than just pushing out the latest research to decision-makers. And we need better ways to transfer state-of-the-art research from universities to agencies and private industry.

Perhaps most limiting is that ecologists traditionally have not been taught forecasting concepts and methods. But as I have written, this situation is changing. There now are summer workshops and a growing number of university courses in ecological forecasting. Prediction is leading to new theories that aim to unify different parts of ecology.

With data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), scientists can compare the health of U.S. ecosystems over time.

Ecology’s choice

At the dawn of numerical weather prediction in the 1950s, scientists at the National Weather Service faced a choice. They could either wait to start forecasting until the underlying research, models and tools improved, or proceed immediately with making forecasts and learn by doing. They chose the second path. It proved harder than expected – but had they waited, they likely would have failed because they would have missed a critical window when experts and agencies were willing to make major investments in this effort.

Up to now, ecologists have generally adhered to the first, more conservative path. But in this time of rapid environmental change, the societal need and technological capacity for forecasting have never been greater. The forecasts won’t always be right, especially as the field develops, but failure is part of learning. The time for ecologists to start forecasting is now.

This Author

Michael Dietze, Associate Professor of Earth and Environment, Boston University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

This book is beautiful, dramatic and striking: symbolic of its content. It is wisdom-filled, appropriately weighty and akin to an ancient bible. It engenders visions of dust-filled books of past times and lost cultures. Endangered acts as a modern day Noah’s Ark of imagery whose subjects, if we’re not careful, could soon themselves become of the past, ‘dust’. 

Photographer Tim Flach is no stranger to making animals a focus for his work. But here, the pictures are presented to provoke and engage the reader emotionally. Attuned to how humans regard animals, he presents pictures that pull on the heartstrings. 

Perhaps our experiences and feelings are not so removed from the animal kingdom, much of which is perilously close to extinction. But the photographer suggests that looking at how we ‘feel’ (sometimes a dirty word in scientific circles), and how we relate, is surely the way forward. 

Science and art

On first seeing the book and its several stylised images – and as an anthropologist and artist – I noticed an anthropomorphic response and my scientist side screamed, ‘contrived’! But the ‘artist’ in me acknowledged hyper-realist images on an extravagant scale.

The portraiture is profound, sad, insightful and quirky. Flach presents protagonist and photographer: passive and active as inextricably linked. His photos are eye catching and thought provoking: from the beauty of butterflies in flight, to the ethereal Sea Angel and the last living Northern White Rhino. Their stories unfold.

Photos were shot over the course of 20 months, though the book was years in the making. Flach has worked with experts and naturalists worldwide.

Scientist and zoologist Jonathan Baillie provides accompanying text along with Sam Wells, substantiating the story of each species. Condensing material for the book must have been excruciating. The book’s power comes in succinctly supplying an account that packs a punch, whilst allowing the reader space for personal interpretation. 

Endangered uniquely differs from previous work as it presents a staged, artistic snapshot in captive confines alongside animals recorded in their natural habitat. The Giant Panda is seen looking upon a spectacular natural habitat. But on closer inspection, the reader notices a corner shadow: a window, suggesting that all is not what it seems. Conserving animals in confines such as zoos is far from ideal. 

Outsider animals

The book encompasses the obscure, the ‘non-cute’, and the odd in appearance. The time is now for the ‘outsider animal’. In a world driven by appearance (applicable in both human and animal kingdom), these images show that all species are important, and highlight how interrelated planet and inhabitant is. 

Flach posits, “the most important message is that it’s not simply images of animals but that every aspect of our being is influenced by the natural world around us.

With over seven hours a day spent on the Internet, it’s clear we don’t have the same sensibilities our predecessors had to their environment. I want to point to the ecological drivers of humanity through portrayals of animals and I chose some candidates to demonstrate that”. 

The 180 photos in the book highlight the plight of a variety of species and the threats they face from poachers, the pet trade, habitat destruction, palm oil production, climate change, cultural belief, and business and industry keen to cash in on their aesthetic properties. Skins, bones, pelts, meat and eggs all are targets.

Wildlife and ecosystems are consistently threatened from all angles, and biodiversity is in decline. But daily planet doom-mongery can negatively impact.

Sentient species

Admittedly some species’ situation is so acute it appears futile to aid. But this book offers a better understanding of the bigger picture, literally and figuratively.

It is no use sitting crying (note to self) or blaming. People hold the power, by lobbying government and business, cooperatively working with communities, finding alternatives to poaching, seeking sustainable solutions. There are possibilities. 

Flach has made it his place to capture not just animal imagery, but emotion, environment, and the essence of human-animal relationships. He intimately, painstakingly and devotedly pursues the animal story. The book is a beacon, and the pleasure in his work is apparent.

Endangered is the perfect enthusiast or collectors book. Animals are heralded and held on high – not as trophies of poachers and hunters, but in the pages of a book – elevated and respected as the sophisticated, sentient species with whom we share the planet.

And whom hopefully we regard with greater consideration and wonder. It is the conversational book on conservation.

Endangered by Tim Flach

Prologue and epilogue by Dr. Jonathan Baillie, body text by Sam Wells

Abrams, £50

This Author

Wendyrosie Scott is an anthropologist and journalist focusing on design and creative communities. She looks at the positive partnerships between lifestyle trends & the​​ natural world. 

The Environmental Justice Atlas or EJAtlas of the Autonomous University of Barcelona collected 2330 data sheets on ecological distribution conflicts from all over the world. On average, one more case is added per day.

The sheer size of our database makes new studies possible on the actors in such conflicts and their forms of mobilisation, on the deaths of activists in these conflicts or on the factors that lead to failure or success in achieving environmental justice.

Social studies can be done on the various cultural expressions such as banners, documentaries and songs used in the various struggles for environmental justice.  

Smelting and refining

What we see is that these conflicts are exposing value system contests. For instance, if a river is polluted or a forest destroyed by open cast mining, financial compensation may be a way out for the company responsible but other valuation languages (biodiversity, the “rights of nature”, the livelihood of local populations, indigenous territorial rights, sacredness) will then be sacrificed.

Money cannot compensate for all such loses. The language of economics (and of monetary cost-benefit analysis) is powerful but it is not always powerful enough. 

Why do so many “ecological distribution conflicts” (as recorded in the EJAtlas) arise? This is  because of the growth and changes of the flows of energy and materials in the economy.

We call those flows the “metabolism” of the global economy. For instance, coal mining leads to conflicts along the whole “commodity chain”, from mining to transport to burning in coal fired power plants producing pollutants and excessive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Another example is the increase in bauxite mining, that causes conflicts in mining, in smelting and refining of aluminum, in the process of creating electricity for that and when leaving “red mud” as waste.

Unsustainable economies

Some famous conflicts, such as in the Niyamgiri Hill in Odisha in India against the Vedanta company, exemplify the power of the value of sacredness and the power of indigenous territorial rights against the power of money.

In this particular case, the power of the local people turned out to be bigger than the power of a 7 billion dollar investment. 

Changes in the social metabolism lead to conflicts, which are then expressed in different valuation languages. Ecological and economic distribution conflicts are not the same.

Economists claim that all externalities just need to be internalised in the price, but reality shows that not everything has a price tag.

The circuit from changes in social metabolism to ecological distribution conflicts to environmental justice networks and movements, and to transitions to less unsustainable economies and societies, is depicted in Fig.1.

For instance, more coal for electricity production causes conflicts at different scales and may give rise to movements for “leaving coal in the hole”.

Monetary compensation

If such movements are successful, the economy will be more environmentally sustainable. More windmills or more dams might be built instead to substitute for coal fired power plants but this in turn sometimes gives rise to conflicts over land rights and water rights.

From the point of view of governments and business, economic growth and profits demand an expanding or changing “metabolism of the economy”.

As solution to the conflicts this creates, they propose improved Corporate Social Responsibility. This sometimes works in the West or in China, where “eco-compensation” is used to keep the population quiet despite damages from land grabbing and the extractive industries.

Less conflictivity is good for business and for economic growth, it allows more mining and more fossil fuel extraction to take place.

But in most places, no amount of monetary compensation will prevent a conflict from taking place, simply because people have non-monetary social values as well.

Value systems

That may be hard to believe in the boardrooms of companies traded on the stock market, or in the minds of  economists – but it’s the reality and it explains the rising number of ecological distribution conflicts, in parallel to the rising number of tonnes of materials extracted in the world.

From the point of view of the environmental movement, we take a positive view of ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability.

In the EJAtlas we find that almost 20 per cent of conflicts end with success for environmental justice, often meaning projects stopped.

More conflicts mean less mining, less plunder of biomass and less fossil fuel extraction. Networks are formed and new words invented to express the new fights, such as Blockadia.

The slogan that “water is more valuable than gold” is only untrue if we consider the value as the price per kilogram – but it is true in the sense that there are other value systems apart from money pricing.

So when a religious leader like Pope Francis accepted an invitation to hold up a t-shirt with that slogan, it was because he supported the view that some values of water are not counted in money. He and the vast majority in the world know that – it is the psychopaths steering our economy into the abyss who don’t get it. 

This Author

Joan Martinez Alier is an eminent and award wining professor in ecological economy and a globally recognised specialist on environmental justice. Martinez-Alier works at ICTA-UAB, Barcelona. He wrote this contribution in his capacity as the coordinator of the European Research Council funded EnvJustice Project.

This book is beautiful, dramatic and striking: symbolic of its content. It is wisdom-filled, appropriately weighty and akin to an ancient bible. It engenders visions of dust-filled books of past times and lost cultures. Endangered acts as a modern day Noah’s Ark of imagery whose subjects, if we’re not careful, could soon themselves become of the past, ‘dust’. 

Photographer Tim Flach is no stranger to making animals a focus for his work. But here, the pictures are presented to provoke and engage the reader emotionally. Attuned to how humans regard animals, he presents pictures that pull on the heartstrings. 

Perhaps our experiences and feelings are not so removed from the animal kingdom, much of which is perilously close to extinction. But the photographer suggests that looking at how we ‘feel’ (sometimes a dirty word in scientific circles), and how we relate, is surely the way forward. 

Science and art

On first seeing the book and its several stylised images – and as an anthropologist and artist – I noticed an anthropomorphic response and my scientist side screamed, ‘contrived’! But the ‘artist’ in me acknowledged hyper-realist images on an extravagant scale.

The portraiture is profound, sad, insightful and quirky. Flach presents protagonist and photographer: passive and active as inextricably linked. His photos are eye catching and thought provoking: from the beauty of butterflies in flight, to the ethereal Sea Angel and the last living Northern White Rhino. Their stories unfold.

Photos were shot over the course of 20 months, though the book was years in the making. Flach has worked with experts and naturalists worldwide.

Scientist and zoologist Jonathan Baillie provides accompanying text along with Sam Wells, substantiating the story of each species. Condensing material for the book must have been excruciating. The book’s power comes in succinctly supplying an account that packs a punch, whilst allowing the reader space for personal interpretation. 

Endangered uniquely differs from previous work as it presents a staged, artistic snapshot in captive confines alongside animals recorded in their natural habitat. The Giant Panda is seen looking upon a spectacular natural habitat. But on closer inspection, the reader notices a corner shadow: a window, suggesting that all is not what it seems. Conserving animals in confines such as zoos is far from ideal. 

Outsider animals

The book encompasses the obscure, the ‘non-cute’, and the odd in appearance. The time is now for the ‘outsider animal’. In a world driven by appearance (applicable in both human and animal kingdom), these images show that all species are important, and highlight how interrelated planet and inhabitant is. 

Flach posits, “the most important message is that it’s not simply images of animals but that every aspect of our being is influenced by the natural world around us.

With over seven hours a day spent on the Internet, it’s clear we don’t have the same sensibilities our predecessors had to their environment. I want to point to the ecological drivers of humanity through portrayals of animals and I chose some candidates to demonstrate that”. 

The 180 photos in the book highlight the plight of a variety of species and the threats they face from poachers, the pet trade, habitat destruction, palm oil production, climate change, cultural belief, and business and industry keen to cash in on their aesthetic properties. Skins, bones, pelts, meat and eggs all are targets.

Wildlife and ecosystems are consistently threatened from all angles, and biodiversity is in decline. But daily planet doom-mongery can negatively impact.

Sentient species

Admittedly some species’ situation is so acute it appears futile to aid. But this book offers a better understanding of the bigger picture, literally and figuratively.

It is no use sitting crying (note to self) or blaming. People hold the power, by lobbying government and business, cooperatively working with communities, finding alternatives to poaching, seeking sustainable solutions. There are possibilities. 

Flach has made it his place to capture not just animal imagery, but emotion, environment, and the essence of human-animal relationships. He intimately, painstakingly and devotedly pursues the animal story. The book is a beacon, and the pleasure in his work is apparent.

Endangered is the perfect enthusiast or collectors book. Animals are heralded and held on high – not as trophies of poachers and hunters, but in the pages of a book – elevated and respected as the sophisticated, sentient species with whom we share the planet.

And whom hopefully we regard with greater consideration and wonder. It is the conversational book on conservation.

Endangered by Tim Flach

Prologue and epilogue by Dr. Jonathan Baillie, body text by Sam Wells

Abrams, £50

This Author

Wendyrosie Scott is an anthropologist and journalist focusing on design and creative communities. She looks at the positive partnerships between lifestyle trends & the​​ natural world. 

The Environmental Justice Atlas or EJAtlas of the Autonomous University of Barcelona collected 2330 data sheets on ecological distribution conflicts from all over the world. On average, one more case is added per day.

The sheer size of our database makes new studies possible on the actors in such conflicts and their forms of mobilisation, on the deaths of activists in these conflicts or on the factors that lead to failure or success in achieving environmental justice.

Social studies can be done on the various cultural expressions such as banners, documentaries and songs used in the various struggles for environmental justice.  

Smelting and refining

What we see is that these conflicts are exposing value system contests. For instance, if a river is polluted or a forest destroyed by open cast mining, financial compensation may be a way out for the company responsible but other valuation languages (biodiversity, the “rights of nature”, the livelihood of local populations, indigenous territorial rights, sacredness) will then be sacrificed.

Money cannot compensate for all such loses. The language of economics (and of monetary cost-benefit analysis) is powerful but it is not always powerful enough. 

Why do so many “ecological distribution conflicts” (as recorded in the EJAtlas) arise? This is  because of the growth and changes of the flows of energy and materials in the economy.

We call those flows the “metabolism” of the global economy. For instance, coal mining leads to conflicts along the whole “commodity chain”, from mining to transport to burning in coal fired power plants producing pollutants and excessive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Another example is the increase in bauxite mining, that causes conflicts in mining, in smelting and refining of aluminum, in the process of creating electricity for that and when leaving “red mud” as waste.

Unsustainable economies

Some famous conflicts, such as in the Niyamgiri Hill in Odisha in India against the Vedanta company, exemplify the power of the value of sacredness and the power of indigenous territorial rights against the power of money.

In this particular case, the power of the local people turned out to be bigger than the power of a 7 billion dollar investment. 

Changes in the social metabolism lead to conflicts, which are then expressed in different valuation languages. Ecological and economic distribution conflicts are not the same.

Economists claim that all externalities just need to be internalised in the price, but reality shows that not everything has a price tag.

The circuit from changes in social metabolism to ecological distribution conflicts to environmental justice networks and movements, and to transitions to less unsustainable economies and societies, is depicted in Fig.1.

For instance, more coal for electricity production causes conflicts at different scales and may give rise to movements for “leaving coal in the hole”.

Monetary compensation

If such movements are successful, the economy will be more environmentally sustainable. More windmills or more dams might be built instead to substitute for coal fired power plants but this in turn sometimes gives rise to conflicts over land rights and water rights.

From the point of view of governments and business, economic growth and profits demand an expanding or changing “metabolism of the economy”.

As solution to the conflicts this creates, they propose improved Corporate Social Responsibility. This sometimes works in the West or in China, where “eco-compensation” is used to keep the population quiet despite damages from land grabbing and the extractive industries.

Less conflictivity is good for business and for economic growth, it allows more mining and more fossil fuel extraction to take place.

But in most places, no amount of monetary compensation will prevent a conflict from taking place, simply because people have non-monetary social values as well.

Value systems

That may be hard to believe in the boardrooms of companies traded on the stock market, or in the minds of  economists – but it’s the reality and it explains the rising number of ecological distribution conflicts, in parallel to the rising number of tonnes of materials extracted in the world.

From the point of view of the environmental movement, we take a positive view of ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability.

In the EJAtlas we find that almost 20 per cent of conflicts end with success for environmental justice, often meaning projects stopped.

More conflicts mean less mining, less plunder of biomass and less fossil fuel extraction. Networks are formed and new words invented to express the new fights, such as Blockadia.

The slogan that “water is more valuable than gold” is only untrue if we consider the value as the price per kilogram – but it is true in the sense that there are other value systems apart from money pricing.

So when a religious leader like Pope Francis accepted an invitation to hold up a t-shirt with that slogan, it was because he supported the view that some values of water are not counted in money. He and the vast majority in the world know that – it is the psychopaths steering our economy into the abyss who don’t get it. 

This Author

Joan Martinez Alier is an eminent and award wining professor in ecological economy and a globally recognised specialist on environmental justice. Martinez-Alier works at ICTA-UAB, Barcelona. He wrote this contribution in his capacity as the coordinator of the European Research Council funded EnvJustice Project.

This book is beautiful, dramatic and striking: symbolic of its content. It is wisdom-filled, appropriately weighty and akin to an ancient bible. It engenders visions of dust-filled books of past times and lost cultures. Endangered acts as a modern day Noah’s Ark of imagery whose subjects, if we’re not careful, could soon themselves become of the past, ‘dust’. 

Photographer Tim Flach is no stranger to making animals a focus for his work. But here, the pictures are presented to provoke and engage the reader emotionally. Attuned to how humans regard animals, he presents pictures that pull on the heartstrings. 

Perhaps our experiences and feelings are not so removed from the animal kingdom, much of which is perilously close to extinction. But the photographer suggests that looking at how we ‘feel’ (sometimes a dirty word in scientific circles), and how we relate, is surely the way forward. 

Science and art

On first seeing the book and its several stylised images – and as an anthropologist and artist – I noticed an anthropomorphic response and my scientist side screamed, ‘contrived’! But the ‘artist’ in me acknowledged hyper-realist images on an extravagant scale.

The portraiture is profound, sad, insightful and quirky. Flach presents protagonist and photographer: passive and active as inextricably linked. His photos are eye catching and thought provoking: from the beauty of butterflies in flight, to the ethereal Sea Angel and the last living Northern White Rhino. Their stories unfold.

Photos were shot over the course of 20 months, though the book was years in the making. Flach has worked with experts and naturalists worldwide.

Scientist and zoologist Jonathan Baillie provides accompanying text along with Sam Wells, substantiating the story of each species. Condensing material for the book must have been excruciating. The book’s power comes in succinctly supplying an account that packs a punch, whilst allowing the reader space for personal interpretation. 

Endangered uniquely differs from previous work as it presents a staged, artistic snapshot in captive confines alongside animals recorded in their natural habitat. The Giant Panda is seen looking upon a spectacular natural habitat. But on closer inspection, the reader notices a corner shadow: a window, suggesting that all is not what it seems. Conserving animals in confines such as zoos is far from ideal. 

Outsider animals

The book encompasses the obscure, the ‘non-cute’, and the odd in appearance. The time is now for the ‘outsider animal’. In a world driven by appearance (applicable in both human and animal kingdom), these images show that all species are important, and highlight how interrelated planet and inhabitant is. 

Flach posits, “the most important message is that it’s not simply images of animals but that every aspect of our being is influenced by the natural world around us.

With over seven hours a day spent on the Internet, it’s clear we don’t have the same sensibilities our predecessors had to their environment. I want to point to the ecological drivers of humanity through portrayals of animals and I chose some candidates to demonstrate that”. 

The 180 photos in the book highlight the plight of a variety of species and the threats they face from poachers, the pet trade, habitat destruction, palm oil production, climate change, cultural belief, and business and industry keen to cash in on their aesthetic properties. Skins, bones, pelts, meat and eggs all are targets.

Wildlife and ecosystems are consistently threatened from all angles, and biodiversity is in decline. But daily planet doom-mongery can negatively impact.

Sentient species

Admittedly some species’ situation is so acute it appears futile to aid. But this book offers a better understanding of the bigger picture, literally and figuratively.

It is no use sitting crying (note to self) or blaming. People hold the power, by lobbying government and business, cooperatively working with communities, finding alternatives to poaching, seeking sustainable solutions. There are possibilities. 

Flach has made it his place to capture not just animal imagery, but emotion, environment, and the essence of human-animal relationships. He intimately, painstakingly and devotedly pursues the animal story. The book is a beacon, and the pleasure in his work is apparent.

Endangered is the perfect enthusiast or collectors book. Animals are heralded and held on high – not as trophies of poachers and hunters, but in the pages of a book – elevated and respected as the sophisticated, sentient species with whom we share the planet.

And whom hopefully we regard with greater consideration and wonder. It is the conversational book on conservation.

Endangered by Tim Flach

Prologue and epilogue by Dr. Jonathan Baillie, body text by Sam Wells

Abrams, £50

This Author

Wendyrosie Scott is an anthropologist and journalist focusing on design and creative communities. She looks at the positive partnerships between lifestyle trends & the​​ natural world. 

The Environmental Justice Atlas or EJAtlas of the Autonomous University of Barcelona collected 2330 data sheets on ecological distribution conflicts from all over the world. On average, one more case is added per day.

The sheer size of our database makes new studies possible on the actors in such conflicts and their forms of mobilisation, on the deaths of activists in these conflicts or on the factors that lead to failure or success in achieving environmental justice.

Social studies can be done on the various cultural expressions such as banners, documentaries and songs used in the various struggles for environmental justice.  

Smelting and refining

What we see is that these conflicts are exposing value system contests. For instance, if a river is polluted or a forest destroyed by open cast mining, financial compensation may be a way out for the company responsible but other valuation languages (biodiversity, the “rights of nature”, the livelihood of local populations, indigenous territorial rights, sacredness) will then be sacrificed.

Money cannot compensate for all such loses. The language of economics (and of monetary cost-benefit analysis) is powerful but it is not always powerful enough. 

Why do so many “ecological distribution conflicts” (as recorded in the EJAtlas) arise? This is  because of the growth and changes of the flows of energy and materials in the economy.

We call those flows the “metabolism” of the global economy. For instance, coal mining leads to conflicts along the whole “commodity chain”, from mining to transport to burning in coal fired power plants producing pollutants and excessive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Another example is the increase in bauxite mining, that causes conflicts in mining, in smelting and refining of aluminum, in the process of creating electricity for that and when leaving “red mud” as waste.

Unsustainable economies

Some famous conflicts, such as in the Niyamgiri Hill in Odisha in India against the Vedanta company, exemplify the power of the value of sacredness and the power of indigenous territorial rights against the power of money.

In this particular case, the power of the local people turned out to be bigger than the power of a 7 billion dollar investment. 

Changes in the social metabolism lead to conflicts, which are then expressed in different valuation languages. Ecological and economic distribution conflicts are not the same.

Economists claim that all externalities just need to be internalised in the price, but reality shows that not everything has a price tag.

The circuit from changes in social metabolism to ecological distribution conflicts to environmental justice networks and movements, and to transitions to less unsustainable economies and societies, is depicted in Fig.1.

For instance, more coal for electricity production causes conflicts at different scales and may give rise to movements for “leaving coal in the hole”.

Monetary compensation

If such movements are successful, the economy will be more environmentally sustainable. More windmills or more dams might be built instead to substitute for coal fired power plants but this in turn sometimes gives rise to conflicts over land rights and water rights.

From the point of view of governments and business, economic growth and profits demand an expanding or changing “metabolism of the economy”.

As solution to the conflicts this creates, they propose improved Corporate Social Responsibility. This sometimes works in the West or in China, where “eco-compensation” is used to keep the population quiet despite damages from land grabbing and the extractive industries.

Less conflictivity is good for business and for economic growth, it allows more mining and more fossil fuel extraction to take place.

But in most places, no amount of monetary compensation will prevent a conflict from taking place, simply because people have non-monetary social values as well.

Value systems

That may be hard to believe in the boardrooms of companies traded on the stock market, or in the minds of  economists – but it’s the reality and it explains the rising number of ecological distribution conflicts, in parallel to the rising number of tonnes of materials extracted in the world.

From the point of view of the environmental movement, we take a positive view of ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability.

In the EJAtlas we find that almost 20 per cent of conflicts end with success for environmental justice, often meaning projects stopped.

More conflicts mean less mining, less plunder of biomass and less fossil fuel extraction. Networks are formed and new words invented to express the new fights, such as Blockadia.

The slogan that “water is more valuable than gold” is only untrue if we consider the value as the price per kilogram – but it is true in the sense that there are other value systems apart from money pricing.

So when a religious leader like Pope Francis accepted an invitation to hold up a t-shirt with that slogan, it was because he supported the view that some values of water are not counted in money. He and the vast majority in the world know that – it is the psychopaths steering our economy into the abyss who don’t get it. 

This Author

Joan Martinez Alier is an eminent and award wining professor in ecological economy and a globally recognised specialist on environmental justice. Martinez-Alier works at ICTA-UAB, Barcelona. He wrote this contribution in his capacity as the coordinator of the European Research Council funded EnvJustice Project.