Our rewilding colleague Bruno D`Amicis, Communications officer in the Central Apennines, won the “World in Our Hands” category award at the 2014 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPY) competition provides a showcase of some of the best nature photography in the world. It is organised by London’s Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine. WPY had its 50th anniversary this year. It is now considered the world’s foremost photo competition with a major exhibition of the winning images that tours worldwide throughout the year and they appear on this website, in BBC Wildlife Magazine and publications worldwide. As a result, the photographs, including the awarded one by Bruno, are now being seen by millions.
Bruno’s winning photo in the “World on Our Hands” section is called “The price they pay”and depicts a teenager in Tunisia trying to make an illegal sale of a three-month-old fennec fox pup he had caught in the desert.
– “For a photographer like me, who is used to work in wilderness and striving to photograph wild animals as they roam free in their habitat, this sad picture was surely not a pleasant one to take. I would have wished to show only these beautiful creatures as they live in the desert, but I had to tell the whole story”, says Bruno. “Therefore this prestigious award has given me the opportunity to raise awareness about the critical situation in which the wildlife of the Sahara is nowadays going through. And it surely comes with a responsibility. The responsibility to tell people what is going on in the image. By showing it I want to invite you to look into the eyes of this little fennec and not see just a fox, or whatever animal, but the Other. It is an invitation to reflect on what we are constantly doing to the Other… I believe, in fact, that if we would all stop and look more often in the eyes of the beings we share this Planet with, we might end up eventually discovering some more empathy for them. And only through empathy there might be ultimately hope to improve our relationship with the natural world”.
Wild congratulations, Bruno!
And we wish you win the 2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award with a photo from the Central Apennines. Maybe from the photo mission you just did for us there this summer? This beautiful rewilding area deserves it!
If you want to know more about Bruno’s fennec project, please visit his website: http://www.brunodamicis.com/fennec.phtml
See also the Central Apennines photo gallery on our website where most of the photos are taken by Bruno: https://rewildingeurope.com/areas/central-apennines/gallery/