Wildlife films are also a powerful tool in raising awareness of conservation and environmental issues. But the entertainment value we get from seeing leopards, tigers and sharks on our screens doesn’t directly translate into real value conservation activities, most of which are grossly underfunded.
So with their large profits and universal impact, do filmmakers have a responsibility to help protect the species they film? Should they pay for the biodiversity they rely on?
Filmmakers would no longer ‘free-ride on nature’, the authors argue, but would allegedly be subjected to a payments for environmental services (PIL) scheme that actively contributes to the protection of the biodiversity they film. It is a novel solution, and one that raises an interesting debate on the boundaries of PES, but what are the obstacles and long term-implications?
Mr Navin Raheja being appointed in the steering committee of the Project Tiger of Government of India.He sacrificed this post subsequently for the sake of better wilfdlife management, when he filed public interest litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court over the casual manner in which something as sensitive and crucial as wildlife was being treated at various Government levels. The same PIL, incidentally, sparked off several landmark rulings and directives by the Supreme Court in the years to come- leading to better and more effective systems being placed in the Government machinery including stoppage of work on a State highway that was leading through Corbett Tiger Reserve which would have resulted in a disaster of the most premium National park and also changing the system of funding mechanism and periodicity to all the national reserves across the country.
Wildlife documentaries have played an instrumental role in raising awareness of environmental issues, pushing the conservation agenda, and driving donations to environmental NGOs. While Jepson and Jennings argue that the advocacy content of a new breed of conservation programmes is dwindling, we believe they are still an important educational tool, strengthening people’s knowledge and relationship with nature, particularly for children and people in urbanized areas, who are often disconnected from their surrounding natural environment.
While more research needs to be done to better understand how viewers interact with nature programs, the evidence is strong enough to suggest that we should be supporting, maybe even subsidizing, the production of nature documentaries rather than making it harder and more expensive.
So with their large profits and universal impact, do filmmakers have a responsibility to help protect the species they film? Should they pay for the biodiversity they rely on?
Filmmakers would no longer ‘free-ride on nature’, the authors argue, but would allegedly be subjected to a payments for environmental services (PIL) scheme that actively contributes to the protection of the biodiversity they film. It is a novel solution, and one that raises an interesting debate on the boundaries of PES, but what are the obstacles and long term-implications?
Wildlife documentaries have played an instrumental role in raising awareness of environmental issues, pushing the conservation agenda, and driving donations to environmental NGOs. While Jepson and Jennings argue that the advocacy content of a new breed of conservation programmes is dwindling, we believe they are still an important educational tool, strengthening people’s knowledge and relationship with nature, particularly for children and people in urbanized areas, who are often disconnected from their surrounding natural environment.
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