We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lucie Cizmarova a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lucie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I have been engaged in amateur photography for several years. Now I work at a rescue and rehabilitation centre for slow lorises in Sumatra led by The Kukang Rescue Program organization where I also take photos of everyday activities underway in the centre. Thanks to slow lorises, I have stood face to face to the reality of illegal wildlife trade which is why I decided to address this issue. My wining photos maps the long-term work of Czech zoologists and animal conservationists together with the Indonesian team in the north of the island of Sumatra, where the program for the protection of slow lorises was created. Slow lorises are nocturnal primates living in Southeast Asia, and in addition to the loss of their natural habitat, they are threatened primarily by illegal trade. Slow lorises have become one of the most traded animals for the purpose of keeping them as pets. Even though the purchase, sale and possession of slow lorises is illegal both in Indonesia and in other countries, the lack of enforcement of laws to protect them allows this trade to flourish. Czech conservationists therefore decided to respond to this situation and change it. My goal is to use my photographs to inform, educate and make people think.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up among farm animals, so nature and animals in general were very close to me. During my later studies I got into wildlife conservation and stayed there. When I later co-founded a program for the protection of slow lorises and other wild animals in Sumatra (The Kukang Rescue Program), I began to devote myself fully to this topic. However, I am also a passionate photographer and in my work I focus on environmental topics, especially on the issue of trafficking in wild animals. I try to capture the problems that wild and often endangered animals have to face. Whether it‘s keeping wild animals for fun and taking pictures with tourists, acquiring them as pets, or hunting them for meat or traditional medicine. But I also document the change in our landscape as well as the animals inhabiting this landscape. My stories should educate and make us think and bring about a positive change in our daily behavior. Because the planet will survive without us, but we will not survive without it! I am also very happy to be part of the team who have been created the Stolen Wildlife Campaign (www.stolenwildlife.org). It is the first complex awareness raising campaign focused on illegal trade in wild animals and their body parts in the Czech Republic and Europe. Aim of these photographs is to make people think about how our behaviour and choices influence what happens in the world and that each of us is responsible for how our planet will look like. The demand always creates the offer and demand for wild animals or their body parts has brought many animal species to the brink of extinction. Part of this campaign are photo panels which i have made and everyone can inform and educate the public through those photo panels by installing them in the various institutions. Interesting is that all the specimens or parts of animals on the photographs, such as ivory, rhino
horns, furs of big cats, pangolin scales etc., have been seized by control authorities in the Czech Republic. This highlights the fact that illegal wildlife trade is not a problem of just Asian or African countries, but that it is an issue of countries around the world.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Trying to change the attitude of people and potentially entire governments in different countries is always a challenge, especially when it comes to protecting entire ecosystems. These consist of many individuals and entire populations of all living things, and the disruption of this nature can have fatal consequences for all of us. I chose to protect nature and animals, and with my education as a veterinary nurse and zoologist, I can help directly in places where it is needed. Using my other skill and hobby like photography, I can show these subjects to people and evoke emotions in them. These can then lead to a change in attitude and awareness.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

If I take it from my point of view of working in Sumatra, I remember when I started building a team of animal conservationist with local people there 8 years ago and I imagined how everything would run after maybe 2 years. After two years, I realized that I was just getting to know this country and the mentality of the local people as well. And so everything is getting longer, but now I’m proud of what the locals, offten former poachers, now animal conservationist have accomplished. If I’m going to talk about my work in environmental photography, which captures the fate of animals and nature often very cruelly, I’ve learned that it doesn’t always have to be accepted by the public. But I still believe that it is necessary to show people the negative side that it contains, even if it can often be very shocking to them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lcizmarovaphotojournalism.com, www.kukang.org, www.stolenwildlife.org
• Instagram: lcizmarova_conservationstories, stolen.wildlife, kukang_program
• Facebook: Ukradená divočina – Stolen Wildlife, The Kukang Rescue Program
• Youtube: The Kukang Rescue Program

Image Credits
photo Lucie Cizmarova