Wildshots – focusing on youth and conservation

Murray McCallum
November 19, 2021

Natural Selection was founded on the basis of our commitments to environmental conservation and the need to protect Africa’s important wildlife areas.  A key ingredient to the sustainable long-term conservation of wild areas is the inclusion of all stakeholders, particularly local communities. Natural Selection looks for innovative ways of facilitating conservation conversations with communities and has recently found a unique approach in the work of WildShots, our newest partner in conservation.

Wild Shots Outreach is an award winning NPO, with its most recent accolade being the International Gold Award from The Global Good Awards (2020). It is an immersive experience through which young adults from disadvantaged communities get to appreciate wildlife and wild places through the lens of a camera. This immersive experience goes some way to facilitating conversations around conservation, and hopefully shaping mindsets of the next generation of environmental stewards.

Apart from a better understanding and appreciation of wildlife and conservation, the objective of this initiative is to develop self-confidence, self-esteem, life skills and, of course, photographic skills. A recent attendee was chosen as a finalist in The Earth Project COP26 Environmental and biodiversity photography competition”.

Wildshots Outreach recently ran three workshops at Natural Selection destinations – Sable Alley, Planet Baobab/ Jacks Camp and Meno A Kwena. For all the participants this was the first time they had ever been on a game drive, let alone photographed a wild animal! Next year we look forward to the expansion of this partnership.  Guests who wish to help this initiative can donate cameras on their next safari.

For some highlights of the workshops with Natural Selection, please see the newsletter here  Newsletter Jul 2021.pdf and short video here  Botswana Mpho Version.mp4.

For more information about Wildshots see here https://www.wildshotsoutreach.org/.