EDITOR’S NOTE: Call to Earth is a NCS editorial collection dedicated to reporting on the environmental challenges going through our planet, along with the options. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with NCS to drive consciousness and schooling round key sustainability points and to encourage constructive motion. Wildlife photographer and conservationist Chris Fallows is a Call to Earth visitor editor.
Almost 25 years in the past, when Chris Fallows captured his well-known {photograph} of an ideal white shark breaching the floor at False Bay, off Cape Town, the space was a hotspot for the predators.
Between 2000 and 2015, analysis surveys identified round 1.64 shark sightings per hour in the space. Around 15 years later, sightings began to dwindle, and by late 2018, nice whites fully disappeared from False Bay.
Some researchers blame a pair of predatory killer whales for the decline — suggesting the sharks merely fled — however others, together with Fallows level to human conduct resembling overfishing and the use of shark nets.
Whatever the motive, for Fallows, the loss was private.
“[My wife and I] could not have fought harder to save those animals,” mentioned Fallows, who travels the world together with his spouse Monique photographing wildlife. “We truly poured blood, sweat and tears into chasing poachers with our boats, getting huge numbers of people to sign petitions and forcing government to effectively have special meetings to consider the massive pressure that was being put on them [the sharks].”
Beyond the lens with photographer Chris Fallows
“You can’t own the ocean, but you can own land”
When they couldn’t save the nice whites, they determined to show their consideration to conservation on dry land. “You can’t own the ocean, but you can own land,” mentioned Fallows. “We can control what happens on that land, and make sure it’s in the best ecological and biological interests of those environments.”
Using a part of the proceeds from the sale of his superb artwork pictures, in 2017 the pair purchased round 25 hectares (61 acres) of land on the western banks of the Breede River in Cape Infanta, South Africa’s south coast.
A staff of specialists was employed to clear alien tree species which had taken over the land — together with the acacia which was launched to South Africa from Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
“It was hard to believe anything would grow where the aliens had been, but slowly, pioneer species started appearing,” Fallows mentioned. “These then fixed nitrogen into the soil and other indigenous species started to appear.”
Today, the property is unrecognizable, he says. Where as soon as the acacia stood, there is now an unimaginable quantity of wildlife, resembling flourishing pure fynbos — a local shrubland vegetation — and antelopes together with bushbucks, elands, duikers and Cape grysboks feeding on the vegetation.
“We have baboons, caracals, honey badgers and even the occasional leopard as predators,” he mentioned. “We have many alternative reptiles and unimaginable birds— eagle owls, jackal buzzards, kestrels, harriers and falcons.
“Quite simply, our property is alive with what should be here.”
Inspired by the transformation, neighboring landowners quickly began to do the identical, Fallows mentioned, increasing the conserved land to round 1,500 hectares (3,706 acres).
The Fallows at the moment are in the course of of buying a ten,000-hectare (24,710 acre) property in Namibia, once more funded by pictures gross sales, which they estimate have raised round $1 million to date for buying land.
Once the space is rehabilitated, they hope to staff up with neighbors and native organizations to create what they are saying shall be one in every of Africa’s largest privately owned wildlife reserves, presumably masking near 2 million hectares (round 5 million acres).
“The vision is to create these huge unbroken corridors that allow the natural migration of animals,” mentioned Fallows.
The plan is to finally merge with 4 different conservation landscapes together with Fish River Canyon in southern Namibia, the place an initiative to create the world’s largest black rhino sanctuary is already taking form.
Fallows acknowledges that it’s an enormous enterprise however mentioned it could be “a dream.”
“If in our lifetime we can all collaboratively get that right…we can bring back charismatic wildlife that used to be in that area… like cheetahs, black rhinos and increasing the numbers of brown hyenas,” he added.
Fallows’ final objective, although, is to see lions and desert elephants in the space once more.
“The feeling of being able to help those animals and restore environments is priceless,” he mentioned. “Being in touch with nature and seeing nature rebound and all the rewards that come with that; being able to give back, rather than just to take, is very special.”