ARCTIC by BaiHil

ARC TIC It â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all Paul Nick len talk s about .

Special thanks to Paul Nicklen for putting the about information on his website, The Guardian for access to the article on the Canada Eh? page, and stormchaser.com for the article on Ice Ice Baby. Thank you to Steve Halama for the front cover photo, Shawn Ang for the back cover photo, Annie Pratt for the “refreshing” photo, Deborah Diem for the image on page fourteen, Paul Nicklen for all other ice and wildlife photos, and National Geographic for all the pictures of Paul Nicklen.

F O R P H O T O S H O P. I WOULDNâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET THIS COOL BLUE COLOR WITHOUT YOU.

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CANADA EH? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ICE ICE BABY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Paul Nicklen is a Canadian photographer, filmmaker, and marine biologist who has documented the beauty and the plight of our planet for over twenty years. As an assignment photographer for National Geographic magazine, Nicklen captures the imagination of a global audience.

Nicklen is uniquely qualified to create his brand of documentary photography which informs and creates an emotional connection with wild subjects in extreme conditions. His work delivers audiences to an underwater realm witnessed by few. Nicklen’s sensitive and evocative imagery has garnered over 30 of the highest awards given to any photographer in his field, including the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the prestigious World Press Photo for Photojournalism. He is equally recognized by the conservation community for his outspoken work, and has been awarded the Natural Resources Defense Council BioGems Visionary Award. Most recently, Nicklen was bestowed an honorary PhD at the University of Victoria, for the impact his photography has had on climate change. In addition to being one of the world’s most acclaimed nature photographers, Nicklen is a sought-after speaker, a TED Talks legend, an author, and National Geographic Fellow. In the past two decades, Paul has collaborated with scientists, filmmakers, conservationists and

explorers to create awareness and inspire action for global issues like climate change.

As a co-founder of the non-profit, SeaLegacy, Paul Nicklen is opening a fresh, progressive chapter in the story of ocean conservation. Through visual storytelling, Sea Legacy inspires millions of people to stand up and have a voice for the pristine places threatened by climate change. Paul Nicklen lives a life of art, purpose and adventure, combining a career as an assignment photographer for National Geographic Magazine and founder of his own conservation society, SeaLegacy. In addition to being one of the world’s most acclaimed nature photographers, Paul is an acclaimed polar specialist, speaker, author, conservationist, National Geographic Fellow, and a regular contributor to National Geographic Magazine with 20 completed stories to date. He has garnered more than 30 of the highest awards given to any photographer in his field, including the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the year and the prestigious World Press Photo for photojournalism. Paul has written several books including Seasons of the Arctic, Bear, Spirit of the Wild, Polar Obsession and his newest monograph, Born to Ice.

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F L U F F Y.

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When he was four years old, Paul Nicklen’s family moved to Kimmirut on Baffin Island, northern Canada; a village so remote that supplies are delivered once a year, by boat. The Nicklens were one of only two non-Inuit families in the tiny community, and with no telephone, radio or TV, Paul’s childhood was spent on the ice, in the company of native fishermen and in awe of the visual majesty of the region. “I learned how to freeze,” he says. It is a skill that has helped him to become one of the world’s foremost photographers of polar wildlife. “If you want to shoot the best photography of a particular ecosystem, you have to be comfortable wherever you are,” says Nicklen. “If that’s 150ft deep under the ice, you can’t be sitting there fighting for survival. You need to free up your

mind.” Wearing a rebreather to avoid producing bubbles, he stays submerged for up to six hours, submitting himself to the same conditions inhabited by his favourite species. To Nicklen, the Arctic is not a forbidding, alien landscape, but a spiritual home: “I’m far more comfortable around bears than, say, on the streets of New York.” Nicklen’s profound understanding of polar environments has led him to produce some of the most extraordinary wildlife photography ever seen: narwhals duelling among ice floes, dozens of emperor penguins bursting from the water, a dying polar bear rooting through litter. In one now famous series, documented in a viral TED talk, he spent hours photographing a huge and fearsome leopard seal as she attempted to feed him with dead penguins. These and countless

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other photographs are collected in the forthcoming book, Born to Ice, Nicklen’s most comprehensive monograph to date. To read the book is to experience a kind of snow blindness, as ever more arresting animal portraits stare out from the waves and tundra. Most of Nicklen’s photographs have been taken on assignment for National Geographic magazine, for whom he has shot 22 stories to date. During this time Nicklen, now 50, has won a catalogue of awards including five World Press Photo prizes and the grand title in the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Along with his TED talk and his 4.4 million Instagram followers, these have given him an unusually high profile for a nature photographer. But for all his public acclaim, the end goal of his work is not recognition of the photographs themselves, but the opportunity to educate and inspire people about the front line of conservation. “Photography has the power to break down the walls of apathy,” he says, “to grab people at the heart and then teach them something. You can change their minds, but you have to make that emotional connection first.” A former marine biologist, Nicklen is painfully aware of the future that faces his beloved Arctic and Antarctic habitats if urgent action isn’t taken. “When people think of sea ice melting, they think of this lifeless substance, like ice in a glass,” he says. “But it’s a very complex substrate. You have up to 300 species of microorganism living in the salt brine channels of a piece of sea ice.” The collapse of this biodiversity is one of his main concerns.

“Sea ice is like soil in a garden: the sun’s energy penetrates, and you get algae growing under the ice, and seaweed, which provides the food base for zooplankton. Billions of pounds of amphipods and copepods are growing under there, and it’s the same with krill. Then you have the polar cod that feed on the krill, and from there you have beluga whales, narwhals, bearded seals, Greenland sharks. If we lose the ice, we stand to lose the entire ecosystem.” Growing up near the Arctic Circle, Nicklen has a more immediate understanding of climate change. He recalls being a child in the 1970s, joining the Inuit as they travelled from Baffin Island to Greenland to trade huskies, using an ice bridge across the sea. “Since the 80s, those Inuit haven’t been able to use that bridge,” he says. “It’s gone. For the first time in recorded history, the entire Greenland icecap is melting.” Nicklen was taught survival skills by his Inuit neighbours as a child, and he still relies on the expertise of Inuits and Canadian First Nations for his work. Inuits and their sled teams feature prominently in his photographs, and their firsthand experience of climate change shapes his thinking. “When we were working in Greenland, at 81 degrees north,” he says, “the Inuit were sitting there fishing. One of them pulled up a fish, and all of a sudden they’re getting their iPhones out of their polar bear pants, because it’s a species none of them has ever seen before.” The anecdote has all the drama and urgency of a Nicklen photograph: a snapshot of life under threat of irreparable change.

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With this urgency in mind, In 2014 Nicklen and his partner, fellow photographer Cristina Mittermeier, founded SeaLegacy, an organisation devoted to raising awareness about marine conservation. “We think about money, love, sex, every minute of every day.” he says, “We have to be thinking about money, love, sex and the environment.” Although the challenges seem vast, Nicklen has built his glittering career on the belief that change can begin with one photograph of one individual creature. He recalls with particular delight his experience of tracking and photographing a spirit bear – a vanishingly scarce and elusive subspecies of the American black bear that lives in the coastal forests of British Columbia. “To watch this bear walking through the forest, eating skunk cabbage, going to sleep under a cedar tree, is something I’ll never forget,” says Nicklen. “He was having these little puppy dreams with his breath fogging up my lens, and I just knew I was getting the visual assets that will

make people care.”

MERGING

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AND STORYTELLING.

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REFRESHING.

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At just 4 years of age, his family moved to Northern Baffin Island, Canada, where they lived within a tiny Inuit community of only 200 people. There, his love for the Arctic and Antarctica developed. He was able to see firsthand how interconnected ecosystems are and the evolution of climate change.

However, they were pleasantly surprised when a survey revealed that the article had received the highest readership score in 14 years at National Geographic. “At that point it validated what I needed to do as a journalist. It was okay to do these sort of emotionally driven pieces if I’m going to get people to care.”

“In the next hundred years, scientists project that we’re going to lose half the species on the planet. That’s devastating. If we can’t save these species, can we save ourselves?”

Nicklen is certainly doing just that, having received over 20 international awards for his photography. These include awards from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year, the Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award from his alma mater the University of Victoria and the first Biogems Visionary Award from the National Resources Defence Council.

Originally a biologist, although it was rewarding to bring back valuable scientific data from the field, Nicklen found himself dissatisfied at the way the story from the data was being communicated. “And I thought, if I can just become a photojournalist and get a job with National Geographic magazine, I can bridge the gap between the important scientific work that’s being done and the public.” People weren’t reacting to the science, but they would react to a visual portrayal of the science–the data brought to life with vivid images. “Not just identification images but they have to be close, personal, powerful, intimate–very intimate– images shot at super wide-angle lenses. You’re not just looking at a leopard seal, you’re in the mouth of a leopard seal.” Indeed, his tale of an encounter with a female leopard seal that tried for days to feed him penguins has become the story he is most famous for since his well-received appearance as a guest speaker for TED2011.

After receiving first prize for nature stories in 2010 from World Press Photo, Nicklen felt he needed to go even further. “So, what I’ve done now is I’ve launched an organisation called SeaLegacy. org, and it’s very simple. It’s using the power of photography and visual storytelling to connect people back to the oceans.” SeaLegacy is now aligned with The Humpty Dumpty Institute, a charity whose mission is to put the pieces back together by fostering dialogue between the United Nations, US Congress, universities, the financial community and the artistic community. This also involves participation in their Global Creative Forum, a star-studded event aimed at advancing US foreign policies by building bridges between the United Nations and the Hollywood entertainment industry.

Because of his background as a biologist, Nicklen found himself doing more scientific articles for National Geographic, until one day when he asked his editors to let him do an emotional plea to the readers. He admits they “were all a little bit nervous” about doing a piece that strayed from the unbiased middle line of hardcore journalism.

95% of the big pelagic fish are gone already. Only 1% of the ocean is protected…after a while, the numbers all blur together and lose whatever effect they had. Nicklen aims to overcome this by creating “an emotional connection to the things that we’re losing in the ocean.” He goes to extreme lengths to do so, frequently pushing his

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body to hypothermia and putting himself within mere feet of large marine creatures. Although he would never claim to be fearless, it’s just a normal day in the icy office for Paul Nicklen. “Everyone always likes to talk about the risks that I take, but I don’t see it as risk. I see it as my job,” he states with conviction. Perhaps the best representation of the disconnect between what people think they know and the actual state of the environment is what Nicklen terms “the Thin Blue Line”. The oceans may appear pristine on the surface, however, “all you have to do is lower your mask about 3 inches… all of a sudden you’re looking at coral bleaching, you’re looking at ocean acidification, you’re looking at the loss of species. You’re seeing the effects that we’re having on the oceans.” In many areas of the world the human footprint is just becoming too big to hide. He vividly recalls walking on the beaches of Mexico just last week where giant sea turtles were digging their nests. “They were creating huge piles of plastic on either side of their nests that they were moving because the beaches were so full of plastic. You couldn’t walk without stepping on plastic.” In contrast, Nicklen is full of praise for New Zealand, calling it “an example of what’s being done right in the world of conservation.” Although, the past 2 years have seen New Zealand’s government deal heavy blows to our carefully cultivated “clean, green” image. This includes New Zealand being the only country to vote against extending protection to our critically endangered Maui’s dolphin at the world’s largest conservation summit in September 2012, the government’s reluctance to re-commit to the Kyoto Protocol and a highly controversial law passed under urgency earlier this year banning protestors deemed to be interfering with oil exploration vessels. However, he remains steadfastly optimistic about the ability

of the few to do a great amount of good. “You have a right to have a voice in Antarctica…Just a small country can have a huge voice, and I think New Zealanders need to step up and say this is in our backyard.” Nicklen admits he is conscious of sounding too much like a radical environmentalist and turning people off, but his burning passion for marine conservation is all too apparent. One event in particular is currently stoking the flames. “Why does Russia get to have the one voice that can shut down a marine protected area, you know? It should be a democracy.” He is referring to the failed meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources to implement proposals for marine protected areas in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean because, out of 24 countries, a single nation said no. The proposals were meant for the Ross Sea, often called “the last ocean” because it is one of the only untouched marine ecosystems left on the planet. The benefit of marine protected areas to all species, including humans, is something he puts significant emphasis on. Nicklen has just worked on a small one of 10 square kilometers in Cabo Pulmo, which the fishermen themselves fought for. “There’s so much breeding going on that the spill out over the barriers of this breeding area is where the fishermen now just fish and patrol, and they’re getting more catch than they’ve ever had because it’s producing so much life. When you dive in there, it’s just like diving in an aquarium where it’s just so full of life you can’t believe that a place like that still exists. I mean, nature is very resilient, but you have to protect it. You have to create little pockets of marine protected areas.” As for the climate change skeptics, Nicklen says he does not get upset anymore. “The people with the biggest opinions [refuting climate change] are the people with no education,” he says

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dismissively. “The best scientists in the world will say that of course climate change is real…I can take solace in knowing that what I’m doing is the right path. And everywhere I go and everywhere I talk about it, people are becoming more and more receptive. Obama started to talk about it at his inauguration speech. He’s now saying, ‘Screw you, Republicans. It’s real and we’re now taking action for the environment’. It gives me little glimmers of hope that we’re headed in the right direction.” In fact, a recent bipartisan poll shows that threequarters of young voters in the United States find views that reject the science behind climate change “ignorant, out of touch or crazy”, which may pose an obstacle for Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate, over half of whom deny climate change exists. Despite the knowledge of climate change, the level of global apathy exhibited towards taking any action to combat it never ceases to amaze Nicklen, although he can understand it on a certain level. “In some ways, I don’t want to have to deal with this. We have all these problems in life…Also, now I’m supposed to worry about polar bears? And even though people know this, they’re not altering their behaviour. It’s like we’re sort of quietly turning a blind eye to what’s disappearing around us. What I’m trying to do is I’m trying to motivate politicians. I’m trying to motivate lawmakers. I’m trying to use my visuals to sway the public. I’m trying to get people to care…When I meet a climate change naysayer, I say ‘give me your data’, because I don’t want to have to care about this. If it’s a natural cycle and it’s going to start cooling tomorrow and polar bears are going to be fine, then, great! I’ll go do something else for a job…Even National Geographic, I’m embarrassed to say, even though we’ve lost 95% of the bluefin tuna in the ocean, National Geographic has a TV show called ‘Wicked Tuna: the last of the big bluefin tuna hunters’. I find that extremely discouraging.” If Paul Nicklen is ever discouraged, one could never tell. An emotive, intelligent speaker and a talented wildlife photographer, he advocates tirelessly in the name of environmental conservation. “We are going to lose a lot of species, but, for myself, on my deathbed, I need to know that I did everything that I could.”

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H E L LO .

PAUL NICKLEN And that â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all on