Emotional Education Through Primate Photography

Jake Frietze

April 10, Blog Post 3


Emotional Education Through Primate Photography


    In the article, Federico Pardo’s Unfiltered Storytelling Implores Humans to Protect Colombia’s VanishingPrimates, author Melissa Zhu recounts the experiences of photographing wild primates in the Colombia Amazon.

Federico Pardo’s work gained international acclaim when his footage in a show called “Untamed Americas” won

an Emmy Award. Notably, Pardo claims that his work aims to increase awareness and effort toward conservation

in the Colombian wilds and the world.



    To reach his audience, Pardo unveiled a city-based multimedia immersive exhibit using images and
footage of primates to educate a wide audience: “I want people to see them up close, their hands, their
tails, their eyes, their babies, playing, sleeping, feeding”. This learning method could be the reason why
more eyes turn to conservation, highlighting the emotional connection we feel towards animals similar to
us. 



    In class, we have discussed in depth the ways in which conservationists can engage with the public–

and the minuscule success rates of these. Particularly, we have discussed how, unfortunately, education

does not always lead to positive environmental changes– in the context of indigenous communities. It

would be interesting to see if this angle of education, dripping with an emotional moral component,

would yield any different effects. While Pardo claims his exhibit has shown successes with people exiting

asking what they can do to contribute, this may not accurately reflect their perspective. The issue with

emotional-based conservation, in my opinion, is its reliance on a particular stimulus (such as the mournful

call to action you feel when viewing orphaned orangutans). Naturally, people exiting the exhibit (here the

stimulus) would be very emotional and desire to create change, but this response may fade when they

leave the stimulus/exhibit. Thus, I think the effects of emotional education should be studied to properly

analyze its impact. 



References

Zhu, M. (2024, September 1). Federico Pardo’s unfiltered storytelling implores humans to protect Colombia’s vanishing primates. National Geographic: Impact. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/impact/article/federico-pardo-explorer-story

Castillo-Huitrón, N. M., Naranjo, E. J., Santos-Fita, D., & Estrada-Lugo, E. (2020). The importance of human emotions for wildlife conservation. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 1277.

Batavia, C., Nelson, M. P., Bruskotter, J. T., Jones, M. S., Yanco, E., Ramp, D., ... & Wallach, A. D. (2021). Emotion as a source of moral understanding in conservation. Conservation Biology, 35(5), 1380-1387.

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