134 DIGITAL CAMERA^ OCTOBER 2019 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
of poaching and human wildlife conflict. But
I realised the news was always told from the
perspective of poaching – “How do we stop
poaching?” – mostly focused on arming
people, fighting this war. The terminology
was like it’s a war zone.I don’t want to diminish that, but we’re always
leaving out a really important part of the story:
the indigenous people. There are all these
stories that are not put out in the media.It must also be satisfying to tell the stories
of local African people. Many articles and
TV shows focus on outsiders, usually white,
to tell African stories.
It’s so interesting to me. Whenever I pitch
stories like that to Western media, the first
question is: “Is someone from America there?”
I’m like, “Well, no.” It’s a harder sell because,
especially for TV, they claim the audience
want to see people like themselves.
We need to get beyond that now – we’re
a deeply interconnected world – and not
give them images of people who are just like
them. That narrative is very colonial in a lot of
ways. It’s up to us as storytellers to demand“ That image had power.
You’d have to be a robot
not to be touched. It went
across cultures, across
religions, across boundaries,
countries, communities”
Above: Mary Lengees,
a Reteti Elephant
Sanctuary keeper,
caresses Suyian, the first
resident of the sanctuary
in northern Kenya.Opposite top: Kamara,
a rhino keeper, is nuzzled
by black rhino Kilifi, who
he hand-raised along
with two other baby
rhinos at the Lewa Wildlife
Conservancy in Kenya.Opposite bottom:
Joseph Wachira says
goodbye to Sudan,
the last male Northern
white rhino.