What: The Water鈥檚 Edge, an evening with photographer Cristina Mittermeier
When: 7 p.m., Saturday
Where: Charlie White Theatre, Mary Winspear Centre, 2243 Beacon Ave., Sidney
Tickets: $55.65 by phone at 250-656-0275, online at marywinspear.ca or in person at the box office.
Cristina Mittermeier knew even as a child that she wanted to help save the environment. The trick was figuring how best to do that.
鈥淚鈥檝e always kind of known deep in my heart that we abuse nature 鈥� ever since I was a little girl,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou can see it everywhere. I always wanted to be part of the solution.鈥�
Initially, Mittermeier thought that meant becoming a scientist. She enrolled at university in her native Mexico and got a biochemical engineering degree in marine sciences.
鈥淚 thought that becoming a scientist was going to be a good way to share the urgency of protecting and valuing our natural resources,鈥� she said.
鈥淎nd I discovered that it was not so straightforward. Science is not so easily understood by most audiences. People are really not interested in data or graphics.鈥�
What people really want, she said, are stories 鈥� something she only discovered after getting into photography by accident.
鈥淢y first published photograph actually was credited to my ex-husband, whose camera I was carrying when I took the photo,鈥� she said, laughing. 鈥淭hat really stung.鈥�
She soon realized, however, that her photographs could reach people in ways that no amount of charts or graphs ever would.
鈥淪o I came to photography by accident and I realized that humans are hardwired for stories and that through stories we learn important lessons that teach us what鈥檚 culturally appropriate, how to best use our resources, how to behave as global citizens.鈥�
It helped, of course, that Mittermeier had a knack for her newfound career. She began by taking photographs for conservation groups in remote parts of the world, but her work soon caught the eye of National Geographic, which asked her to contribute to the magazine.
鈥淚 was completely surprised,鈥� she said.
Over the years, hundreds of publications have used her photographs and stories to document the lives of Indigenous people or highlight the plight of the world鈥檚 endangered ecosystems.
Mittermeier also uses her photography and storytelling skills to push for change. In 2014, she and her partner, National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen, founded SeaLegacy, a non-profit group working to protect the world鈥檚 oceans.
The organization made international news last year with its video and photographs of a starving polar bear in the Canadian Arctic. Mittermeier said SeaLegacy wanted to show what climate change might look like, but lost control of the narrative when the images went viral and were taken literally.
National Geographic, which published the video, recently acknowledged that it 鈥渨ent too far鈥� with its caption 鈥� 鈥淭his is what climate change looks like鈥� 鈥� since nobody knew for sure why the bear was near death.
Despite the controversy, Mittermeier said she has no regrets about being part of the expedition that captured the images.
鈥淚 wanted to strike a conversation, to make people stop for just a minute and think about climate change and, by any measure, I聽succeeded because 2.5 billion people saw the work that we put out on social media.鈥�
In her talk at the Mary Winspear Centre on Saturday, Mittermeier, who lives with Nicklen in Nanoose Bay, says she鈥檒l offer a retrospective on her life鈥檚 work and share some of the lessons she鈥檚 learned from Indigenous people about how to live sustainably. One of those lessons is something that Mittermeier refers to as 鈥渆noughness.鈥�
鈥淚t has to do with personal fulfilment 鈥� not through the acquisition of material wealth 鈥� but finding abundance in other aspects of our lives, like having purposeful work, belonging to a community of like-minded people, having a sacred spirituality based on nature,鈥� she said.
鈥淪o these are important lessons that I would like to share and maybe have other people discovering [for] themselves this sense of enoughness, which ultimately is the only thing that leads us to being more sustainable.鈥�
