What are you giving your nearest and dearest for the holidays? Amidst the whirl of seasonal spending, this is also the time of year when gift giving that has real meaning and influence is on many people’s minds. Vital Impacts, a new conservation organization and print sale fundraiser, is aimed at addressing travelers with a need to give back. The organization’s message – Collect Art and Support Conservation – taps into the consciousness of travelers who have been touched by their own encounters with the natural world.
To raise money for a select group of conservation organizations, Vital Impacts is selling images from 100 of the best nature and wildlife photographers in the world. Their ranks include James Balog, Xavi Bou, Nick Brandt, Chris Burkard, Jimmy Chin, Tamara Dean, David Doubilet, Tim Flach, Graeme Green, Carolyn Guzy, Beverly Joubert, Keith Ladzinski, Beth Moon, Jim Naughten, Paul Nicklen, Cristina Mittermeier, Matthieu Paley, Joel Sartore, Maggie Steber, Ami Vitale, Stephen Wilkes and Reuben Wu.
Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, has also contributed prints, including a self-portrait, as well as two other images showing the remarkable lives of chimpanzees that she has been working to protect for over 60 years.
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Coming on the heels of the COP26 conference, these photographers show us what is at stake. The photographs from all the artists in this initiative are diverse but the one thing they all have in common is a shared commitment to the environment. The images that have been chosen are often dramatic, iconic and provocative, with a strong sense of place and messaging that is sometimes direct, sometimes subtle, and invariably though-provoking.
Vital Impacts was created and is being run by National Geographic photojournalist Ami Vitale and journalist Eileen Mignoni, and is raising money for 4 organizations: Big Life Foundation, Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots and Shoots program, Great Plains Conservation’s Project Ranger and SeaLegacy.
Its mission is to support these organizations working to protect endangered habitats and the storytellers who amplify these critical stories. A women-led non-profit, Vital Impacts is a 503(c) 3 (pending) and provides financial assistance and amplifies the narrative of community-oriented organizations dedicated to protecting and preserving human and wildlife habitats. Many of these groups offer essential job training and employment in the region.
Big Life Foundation protects more than 1.6 million acres of wilderness in the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem of East Africa. Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots and Shoots program empowers young people to affect positive change in their communities, founded by Goodall and 12 Tanzanian students in 1991. Great Plains Conservation’s Project Ranger is to support NGO’s on the front lines in Africa. SeaLegacy harnesses the power and imagery and storytelling to catalyze and amplify a movement for healthy and abundant oceans.
Vital Impacts is selling an Open Edition 11 x 16 print for $250 and a 16 x 24 print for $675. A handful of the photographers, including James Balog, Jimmy Chin, Beverly Joubert and Cristina Mittermeier, have also offered Limited Editions, ranging in price from $1,500 and up to $30,000 per print. Images are printed on Canson Infinity Edition Etching Rag 310 gsm, a 100% cotton fine art paper. There is a $25 discount for Open Edition prints purchased before Black Friday.
Sixty percent of the profits will go to the four conservation organizations and forty percent to the photographers to aid them in continuing their work. The Vital Impacts fundraiser will run until December 31, 2021.