THE his shots come from the Virunga National Park, on the border between Rwanda and Congo: here Stefano Guindaniflanked byanthropologist Alberto Salzahas chosen to tell a story of biodiversity at risk and of the difficult, but possible, safeguarding of endangered species.
photo Stefano Guindani for BG4SDGs – Time to Change
The shots are in support of the project by General Bank BG4SDGs – Time to Change. An initiative that aims to deepen the state of the art of the process of achieving 17 goals of the UN 2030 Agenda. In particular, in this case, the goal number 15. That is the sustainable management of environmental ecosystems, protecting them from phenomena such as desertification, floods, droughts and deforestation.
Biodiversity at risk: the Virunga National Park
The Virunga National Park was chosen as the “set” of the service because it is inhabited by one species very close to ours from an evolutionary point of viewwhich unfortunately also represents the theme of extinction very well.
«The gorilla shares 98% of its DNA with us: meeting him is an ancestral emotion, it’s a journey into our most remote past», says the photographer. Until 2018, gorillas reached the number of only 1000 individuals on the whole planet.
photo Stefano Guindani for BG4SDGs – Time to Change
But the Virunga National Park is also interesting for the particular difficulties that the preservation of biodiversity poses in this corner of the world. It is shared by three countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. AND it is located in an area of economic and strategic interest.
The protection of biodiversity in Africa in Stefano Guindani’s photos
«The respective governments, not without tensions, are however working to respect biodiversity and safeguard endangered species such as mountain gorillas and golden monkeys», explains Guindani, whose shots also tell the great work done by the park rangers to protect this species so endangered. «It is important to observe how the involvement of rangers, trackers and responsible tourism organizationsas well as generating new economic resources for the population, are indispensable for safeguarding the system and the aforementioned species”.
The climate in fact, it is only one of the factors that negatively affect biodiversity. Among the main drivers of extinction there are also thealteration of land for agricultural or livestock purposes and poaching practices.
Endangered animals: 1 million species in danger
The question is of crucial importance for our planet. 25% of the world’s fauna and flora is threatened and around 1 million species are currently at risk of extinction: these are the numbers that emerged from the latest report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). According to the most recent data, wildlife populations plummeted by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018.
Towards the Venice Film Festival
Banca Generali has turned on this worrying scenario to underline the importance of conscious action, which can preserve and protect the biodiversity of our planet. The BG4SDGs – Time to Change project will continue aiming at the remaining two SDGs of the UN Agenda 2030, to then pull the strings of the entire project with a short that will be presented at the Venice Film Festival in September.
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