United States
£ GBP
20 photographers, 20 locations - one vision to rebuild our natural home, 2020 VISION is an all-media enterprise about why wild nature really matters. It's also the biggest photography-based project ever staged in Britain. It's never been done before: over a period of 20 months, 20 of the UK's top outdoor photographers are photographing and recording 20 different biodiversity projects telling the story of Britain's ecosystems and the life-support services they provide. This is the official flagship book of the event, packed with fantastic photography charting the progress of the assignments, the book provides a compelling narrative of this unprecedented and valuable project. 2020VISION is a once-in-a-lifetime event, but its benefits will be felt well into the future and its message captured forever in this must-have book.
2020 VISION is supported by a number of key partners including The Wildlife Trusts, The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, The RSPB and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
"Peter Cairns and his colleagues are on a mission. This book, which is full of stunning images by some of the UK’s most talented photographers, is meant to inspire. It is full of optimism, talking about projects that reinvigorate, reconnect and repair our relationship with nature. 2020 Vision is centred around the idea of 20 top photographers recording 20 flagship restoration projects across Britain over 20 months, in order to help promote the importance of turning around the fortunes of our wildlife by the target year of 2020 to halt loss of biodiversity in Europe.
At the heart of the project is a belief that images of the natural world can communicate in a direct way with audiences, and therefore convey a high-impact message about the values of nature, and that restoring ecosystems will not just benefit our wildlife, but is something of fundamental importance to our own well-being. The book is just one outcome of the project, and a travelling exhibition, which also includes film and sound, will be visiting locations throughout the UK over the next three years.
The book makes an interesting contrast to Mark Avery's Fighting for Birds, reviewed here. Avery’s book, although equally optimistic, stems from many years at the coalface and is grounded in the hard reality of trying to convince politicians and landowners to make the right decisions for wildlife. However, without an underlying inspirational and emotional response to natural world, there can be no motivation to make a difference. The breathtaking wildlife photographs in this book certainly provide that."
- Andrew Branson, British Wildlife 24(1), October 2012
