For People, For Nature Showcasing NGOs' commitment to humanity and wildlife through environmental storytelling. By Justin Jin

Solar Mamas

WWF France invited me to write and photograph stories in Madagascar about female empowerment project in the mangroves. Here in a remote fishing village, nested among sprawling mangroves that naturally barricade the land from the sea, four women have stepped up to lead a revolution to electrify their communities. They have harnessed a resource Madagascar enjoys in abundance, the sun. I produced various text and photo stories for internal and external use to show WWF's commitment to protect fragile environments.

Solar Mamas

WWF helps trains grandmothers in remote villages in Madagascar to install and repair solar panels and appliances. The result: an energy revolution in a country where 94% of the rural population has no access to electricity.

With a solar light, both Randrianambinina and her grand-daughter can continue working at night. They no longer need to burn kerosene lamps, which fill the houses with toxic smoke, or destroy forests for firewood.

Our readers learn about the indigenous white furred lemur living in the world's most biodiverse island.

This uplifting story takes place among the famed baobabs, Africa’s endangered "tree of life”, and mangroves, earth's natural barrier between land and sea.

Publications

After completing the stories for WWF, I promoted the stories to the international media, which published them extensively.

Rebirth along the Yangtze

WWF US commissioned me to travel along China's greatest river to capture the story of environmental destruction and rehabilitation. From its source on the icy Tibetan plateau to its glittering delta on the East China Sea near Shanghai, Asia's greatest river connects China’s disparate landscapes and propels economic growth. To narrate a story that stretches such a length, we follow the endangered finless porpoise as it struggles against shrinking habitat.

The Yangtze finless porpoise is rotund, and its mouth is fixed in a permanent, cartoonish grin. In 1991, China counted around 2,500 these smiling porpoises in the Yangtze. Now, just under 1,000 of them remain - a population smaller than that of the giant panda. Without direct intervention, they might vanish in a few years.

Yangtze's Rebirth

China already lost the pink Baiji dolphin, the last one sighted in the Yangtze in 2008.

China has just imposed a 10-year fishing ban on the entire stretch of the Yangtze River to rescue its dying ecology.

In the Yangtze’s lower reaches, financial, high-tech, and industrial districts produce much of China's GDP. While large corporations are often blamed for damaging the Yangtze’s ecology, their intellectual and financial capital also make them an important source for conservation projects.

Publications

Thirst for Life

I helped Oxfam GB raise global awareness of a drought across Zimbabwe. I traveled across the scorched country with the support of the local staff.

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