Gallery MontPhoto biennial grant 2019

The conflict between people and nature in the Sahara desert

AUTOR/S

Ugo Mellone

Ugo Mellone, born in Italy in 1983, has lived in Spain since 2008. After obtaining his PhD in zoology studying raptor migration, he is currently working full time on photographic projects, mostly dedicated to endangered species and remote places. He collaborates with conservation NGOs, and his stories have been published in magazines such as the National Geographic (Iberian edition), Terre Sauvage and BBC Wildlife. He has been a category winner in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year (2015) and a speaker at international nature photography festivals. His latest book ("Erg | Reg") is focused on the Sahara desert and its biodiversity.

FULL REPORT

Arid environments are strongly neglected from the conservation point of view. Considered unattractive and seemingly lifeless environments, they have attracted little funding and conservation efforts. Many species of large Saharan mammals have become extinct in recent decades, and those that remain have reduced their distribution range by at least 90%. Uncontrolled hunting is the main responsible of this catastrophe.
As a photographer, I have always been more attracted by open environments than by forests. After numerous expeditions to the Sahara desert, I decided to focus my project on an abrupt region of the Atlantic Sahara. The abundance of cliffs, island mountains and ravines has made this region a refuge for some species of carnivorous and ungulate mammals, as Spanish biologists of the Harmusch association have revealed in recent years.
In a project like the present one, wildlife observations come in dribs and drabs and good photographs with an even lower frequency. Besides performing long fixed stakeouts, I concentrated my efforts on the photo-trapping technique, designing my own system that allowed me to feed the cameras for long periods of time with solar panels. The result of this technique is the photograph of two Cuvier's gazelles, captured by a camera that worked for more than 10 weeks, recording only four passages of this species.
The Sahara desert still has intact areas that allow for a bright future for its biodiversity. Hopefully, conservation projects will be successful, making rocky plateaus and sand dunes becoming again the home of antelopes and cheetahs, as was occurring until a few decades ago.