Summer Photo Contest Winners
Written by Natalie Widel, Director of Digital Marketing | Published: September 19, 2022
We’re excited to announce the winners of Population Connection’s first summer photo contest! Members from around the country submitted photos of the natural spaces, different cultures, and wildlife that inspire them to work for a more sustainable future for our planet. And the winners are…
First Place
Andrew Clark, Pendleton, OR
“This is a photo I really love. It is a Red-crowned Barbet in its nest hole, sleeping. I took the photo during a night hike in the Kalimantan jungle in Borneo. The illumination is with simple flashlights.”
Andrew Clark joined Population Connection in 2015 and became a member of our Leadership Circle in 2019.
My wife, Barbara, and I were both Peace Corps volunteers in 1964, and that led to a life of working and traveling internationally. Barbara has lived, worked, or traveled in 64 nations, and I’m at a relatively paltry 37. We’re both 81, and I’m still working in Africa, but all remote now.
A veterinarian, Dr. Clark works primarily on infectious diseases in livestock. “Millions of people depend for their livelihoods on livestock trade directly, and then millions more people depend on the industries of secondary by-products of livestock,” he explained.
Currently, I am working with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service to promote this coordination into all 55 nations of Africa, with the final goal of creating stable human livelihoods. Stability is a key to how people view their lives and behave, and the more stable and prosperous they are, the more likely it is that they will be aware of and conscientious about their environment and their capabilities for raising fewer, more healthy children.
In describing how he views Population Connection’s work, he says:
People like me are working to stabilize the supply of high-quality protein for development of healthy brains in healthy children and stable livelihoods for their parents. Population Connection supporters can work toward stabilizing the population at lower—much lower—levels. This can be done—we all have a part to play.
If Population Connection supports us all working together toward the same goal of human populations appropriate to the environments and ecologies of their lands, lots of good things can happen, and millions of people will be better off.
Honorable Mentions
Kris Gulden, Fairfax, VA
This was my first time exploring Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, near Cambridge, MD, in the evening. As luck would have it, the sky was a mix of beautiful colors and cloud formations as the sun was setting. I like the way the colors are reflected on the water, too.
Why population issues matter to Kris:
There are so many dangers posed by overpopulation. We have limited space and limited resources here on earth, and stabilizing the number of people on the planet is critical not only for our survival, but it also influences the quality of life we experience.
Alex Burr, Las Cruces, NM
I took this photo of an elephant family in Sweetwaters Game Reserve, a large, well populated park in Kenya with a large variety of wildlife.
Why population issues matter to Alex:
It takes a certain amount of land area, food, and other resources to support each person. In some places on earth, there are too many people for a good quality of life and a sustainable future. If population growth is not reduced, the regions that already have too many people will continue to exceed their carrying capacity.
Tom Cameron, Avon, CT
I’ve spent hundreds of hours, over many years, on this river (often in my kayak), witnessing its beauty. This was a special morning—my birthday—and the river gave me a present: a doe and her two fawns respectfully requesting passage through a flock of geese feeding in the shallow rapids.
Why population issues matter to Tom:
Our challenge is to recognize our fossil fuel addiction and understand how it has warped our consciousness and exploded our human population at the expense of thousands of other species and brought us to the brink of our own demise.