“In these difficult and turbulent times where the distinction between facts and opinion is increasingly blurred, at a time when uncontracted information is the raw material for debates on social networks, and even televised ones, We believe that Visa Pour l'Imagecan offer several of the things that are so much missed today: content with substance, nuanced, supported in a context, and analyzed with perspective ”, writes Jean François Leroy, founder and director of the main international competition devoted to journalism, on the occasion of the presentation of its 32nd edition. An appointment that this year is largely affected by the health measures required by the pandemic, but that still does not give up its objective of offering the audience the best photojournalism. This year's program includes 20 exhibitions distributed throughout the different historical locations of the city, complemented by different events, including screenings and conferences, which will be broadcast live on the Internet.
Billions of tons of plastic have been manufactured over the past decades. Last year, a total of 9,762 square kilometers of the Amazon rainforest, an area as large as Lebanon, were destroyed; a record in deforestation. It is estimated that in 2050, the rise in temperature, together with the alteration of the monsoon rhythms, will result in an impoverishment of almost half of the Indian subcontinent. The estimates also warn of the consequences of the five hundred metric tons of mercury that have been dumped in the Bay of Augusta, Sicily, since 1958. Among them the increase in mortality from breast cancer, which has increased by 21% from 1951 to 1980, and the prevalence of congenital malformations, which rose 3.7% in 12 years, reaching the highest rate of spontaneous and non-spontaneous abortions in Italy. Canadian tar sands are the most destructive oilfields on earth, and the industry is frequently cited in climate change reports. These are some of the significant themes that the new edition of the festival alludes to, which begins tomorrow in Perpignan, underlining the alarming deterioration of the environment through a good part of its exhibitions.
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PHOTOGALLERYThe best photojournalism in defense of nature
Climate change, the gold rush and mercury poisoning meet in La Rinconada, Peru, one of the highest towns in the world where "hell meets heaven", as described by photographer James Whitlow Delano . Plastic waste accumulates at different points in this town, which lacks plumbing and sanitation systems.
"The planet is literally drowning in the plastic we throw away," says the photographer, author of the disturbing series Drowing in Plastic, which shows how this environmental plague, which manifests itself more clearly in the developed world, does not no country is spared. In this way, the Arctic ice concentrates an increasing amount of microplastics. Plastic having also been found in the Mariana Trench, the deepest area of the Earth's oceans. “According to an Australian study conducted in 2015, 90% of seabirds eat plastic. In some, so much has been found in their stomachs that there is no room for food. Little by little they are dying of hunger ”, highlights the author, who is part of the Sipa Press agency and is the founder of the Instagram account EverydayClimateChange (ECC), where photographers from six continents document the ravages of climate change across seven continents , broadening the western vision that is normally offered on the subject.
“How can the destruction process protected by the Brazilian government be stopped?” Asks Victor Moriyama, who in 2019 spent 70 days immersed in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in order to produce a report for The New York Times. Under the title Amazon Deforestation, the photographer presents a selection of images, in the Convento de los Minimos, which serve as testimony of the effects of the prevailing occupation of large areas of the jungle, illegally, in order to increase the terrain for livestock use. Wild felling of trees is the first step in a complex network of illegal operations that includes the sale and export with false documents. "There is also illegal mining activity, supported by President Bolsonaro, who has presented a bill that will allow mining and hydroelectric operations on indigenous land," says the photographer.
"Global warming has destroyed the concept of the monsoon," writes Raghu Murtugudde, a climate scholar at the University of Maryland (USA). "We must do without prose and poetry written for millennia to write a new one." Hence, photographer Bryan Denton visited different cities and rural areas of India to document how climate change, aided by the tendency towards shortsighted politicians, is leaving millions of people who watch their lives helpless. they are significantly altered by variations in the monsoon. Thus, the exhibition Drought and Deluge in India portrays a scenario where the rains are increasingly extreme and less predictable, with little capacity to permeate the arid soil, as does the fine and constant rain, and have devastating floods as a consequence.
Russian-French photographer Elena Chernyshova presents Sacrifice, a report focused on the Augusta-Priolo petrochemical complex, where 34% of Italy's petroleum products are produced. This vast industrialized coastal area used to employ 20,000 people in the eighties and is responsible for the high and pernicious levels of pollution that the area experiences, without due control due to the feared economic collapse that the closure of the company would entail. Similarly, As Long as the Sun Shines examines another of the most destructive industrial projects on the planet: Canadian tar sands and their impact on indigenous communities. "The industrial development of indigenous territories disguised as 'an economic opportunity' has caused ecological damage in different communities throughout Canada," notes photographer Ian Willms. “Cancer, birth defects, lupus, and other types of problems occur at alarmingly high levels as wildfires, caused by climate change, ravage land that has not yet been disturbed by industrial development. At Fort Chipewyan, locals describe this process as a 'slow-motion cultural genocide', while the nearby city of Fort McMurray has benefited for decades from exceptional economic growth.
Wolves at the Top of the World is the result of the experiences of Ronan Donovan, who spent 30 hours with the Arctic wolves in order to study the behavior of these tundra predators, with the effects of climate change as a background. The photographer had already spent a year documenting the behavior of wolves in Yellowstone National Park. "These animals are chased and hunted outside the park so they are still fearful of humans, how could it be otherwise", hence when the report ended, convinced that it was not "a fair portrait of the gray wolf wild, ”he wanted to try his luck with the lonely arctic wolves. “As humans we try to oversimplify what we don't understand. We do this routinely with human cultures, and we certainly apply the same measure to wild animals. These images attempt to portray wild wolves using the same approach that a documentary photographer would take to humans. With the own distance of intimacy, and with time, the portrait is completed ”, highlights the author.
Visa pour l'Image . Perpignan. France. From August 29 to September 27.