MAVERICK CONSERVATIONIST

I worked with conservation of endangered animals and the NGO I worked for did great work, but I wanted to do more, so I picked up the camera.

- Girish Mallya

You describe yourself as a conservationist. How do you use photography to make a difference? 

I dont see myself as a writer even if I have written books, so wanted to see what I could do with help of photos.

And very quickly my photos got noticed.

I have always seen myself working more hands-on, to save animals than just clicking beautiful photos, so today I work for an organisation called World Animal Protection that does more hands-on difference for animals. With them among other things, l have been to Thailand and moved an elephant from the tourist industry to freedom, out in a nature reserve, called Following Giants. During my years working with conservation I have seen so much bad thing people do to animals and the impact of tourism industry is one of the worst thing we can find. All these selfies with animals causes so much pain for the animals and in many cases it kills them, all so you can get a photo to put out on social media. Is that photo worth the torture and their life? People are so uneducated when it comes to this, but I hope people will learn more and never ever take a photo with a wild animal in captivity.

An elephant back isn’t built to carry things so their back soon get very bad and causes them in deep pain, and their feet aren’t made to walk on asphalt and it will wear them down, and it can get so bad that you have to put the elephant down, but before that it will walk with extreme pain in its feet, just so you can have some “fun” and ride an elephant. Is that more important than their life?

I am very happy doing this work and I hope we can do even more in the future.