WILDLIFE CONSERVATION
In the last 20 years, Isabelle has contributed her visual storytelling and writing skills to advance impact-driven public campaigns in the environmental sector. She has traveled to remote places around the world to raise the profile of little known, elusive and under- appreciated threatened species, aiming to raise awareness, inspire concern and action for their conservation. Over the years she has built trust with many scientists and joined expeditions to document science in the field, help disseminate scientific results, and share stories with the broader public through her talks, films, multimedia exhibitions, books and articles. Contact Isabelle for help with your campaign or storytelling activities.
BC’S SPECIES AT RISK
Isabelle has helped the Wilderness Committee, Canada’s largest membership-based environmental organisation with a campaign to obtain a stand-alone provincial legislation to protect species at risk in British Columbia. The province is home to more wild plant and animal species than any other province in Canada and is also one of the last holdouts for many large mammals that once roamed much of North America. Alarmingly, 1,900 species are on the provincial species at risk list, including the northern spotted owl, the grizzly bear, the Vancouver Island marmot, the western painted turtle, the western rattlesnake and the phantom orchid. Species are in trouble primarily because of habitat loss and degradation.
Isabelle has educated and mobilised the people in British Columbia and beyond through community outreach, media, digital engagement, public presentations, storytelling, photography, and films. She has written and directed 10 award-winning short films showcasing local endangered wildlife, the specific habitats these species rely on to survive, such as grasslands, old-growth forests, and wetlands, and why it is important to protect these habitats. A selection of these films can be viewed in the Films section and on Isabelle’s Vimeo site.
Isabelle has also developed two inquiry-based curriculum resources in partnership with teachers, wildlife biologists and curriculum specialists that can be integrated into a variety of classes for BC secondary schools and are designed to introduce students to endangered species issues with a focus on field activities. Module 1 is an introduction to species at risk while Module 2 specifically focuses on amphibians.
For this campaign, Isabelle has traveled to various parts of British Columbia to photograph western skinks, burrowing owls, rattlesnakes, badgers, barn swallows, Oregon spotted frogs, mountain caribou, barn owls, and more. See a selection of her images in the Photography section.
A CHANGING ARTIC
Isabelle has been involved as a writer and photographer in different science-based projects to document and report on the changing Arctic environment.She joined a research expedition inBaffin Island to document a satellite tagging program for narwhals. Because narwhals live in a fast-changing Arctic environment, understanding their population size, migration patterns, behaviours, and interactions with the environment is critical to help conserve a species faced with multiple threats including climate change, industrial development, increased boat traffic, and pollution. Her writing and photography served to document the scientific work conducted during the expedition, was used in scientific papers, and in outreach materials. She wrote a series of blogs, a story on the use of traditional ecological knowledge in Scientific American, and a feature on narwhal conservation in New Scientist. Her photography was also featured in the Smithsonian exhibition: Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend. Isabelle has also joined a scientific expedition to document research on beluga whales in the Churchill River.
Isabelle has written articles on the Arctic for World Wildlife Magazine and has also collaborated with WWF-US to research and write a story map to illuminate the biological, ecological and cultural values of eight Important Marine Areas in the US Arctic.
