1 of 2 photos of dead albatross chicks with plastic in their stomachs taken by Chris Jordan in 2009 went viral and changed our response to the plastic crisis Photo: CHRIS JORDAN Photos of dead albatross chicks with plastic in their stomachs taken by Chris Jordan The year 2009 went viral and changed our response to the plastic crisis Photo: CHRIS JORDAN
When American photographer Chris Jordan first set foot on Midway Atoll — a narrow strip of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean — in September 2009 to document the “frightening” amounts of debris in the oceans, little did he know the aweinspiring image The depiction of a dead albatross chick would go viral and change the world’s response to the plastic crisis.
After Jordan produced some images of large piles of trash, he looked for another way to highlight the scale of the overuse of plastic.
After learning of an island 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, covered by thousands of dead birds and whose stomachs were full of everyday plastic products like bottle caps and toothbrushes, he said he “instantly felt the magnetic urge to go there.” go”. .
He was determined to “find a way to take pictures”. [essas aves] to prove the magnitude of this environmental tragedy.
Jordan wasn’t the first photographer to capture the impact of the plastic crisis on Midway’s albatross population.
The first known photo was taken by American researchers in 1966 and published in 1969, according to biologist Wayne Sentman, chairman of the Friends of Midway Atoll organization.
Eating plastic is likely the cause of the “worst fate” of albatross chicks.
Its fragments can perforate the intestinal wall of birds or cause dehydration. And heavy metals and other substances can dissolve in concentrations that can be fatal to birds, according to Sentman.
Jordan was familiar with the earlier photos taken at Midway, but he tried to bring a more emotional dimension to his images. He likens the composition of photographs of dead birds to a “funeral ritual”.
“When we arrange sacred objects on an altar, we do so naturally, with symmetry and balance, and it can take a long time to settle,” Jordan explains.
2 of 2 Jordan didn’t expect his pictures to go viral Photo: GETTY IMAGES Jordan didn’t expect his pictures to go viral Photo: GETTY IMAGES
He decided to use a diffuser — a white material spread across a frame that diffuses bright light — to create softer lighting “which helps create the feel of a slightly deeper photo.”
When Jordan returned to Seattle, United States, he thought he had completed his project. “I said goodbye to the island and went home, edited the pictures and published them,” he says.
He hadn’t expected his images to “go viral” long before the age of social media. His photos quickly appeared in magazines and newspapers around the world.
“They kind of popped up everywhere at once,” he recalls.
Tens of thousands of emails poured into his inbox and he had to hire a fulltime assistant just to answer them.
“A lot of people wrote with traumatic reactions,” he says.
“People wanted to go to Midway and save the albatrosses, but the plastic isn’t from that island. It’s a systemic problem.”
A recent WWF report predicts that plastic production is expected to more than double by 2040. As a result, plastic waste in the ocean is expected to quadruple by 2050.
Environmental engineer Jenna Jambeck from the University of Georgia in the US is a global expert on plastic pollution.
She estimates that in 2010, 8 million tons of plastic entered the ocean from landbased sources. The weight corresponds to about 650,000 doubledecker buses.
Jordan then decided to return to Midway. It came in July 2010 to a “cacophony” of millions of albatrosses dancing, singing and greeting each other.
Jordan was delighted. “The number of birds is unbelievable,” he recalls.
“Immediately, the other side of the story began to show itself and the theme became the island’s name staying halfway.” [‘midway’, em inglês] between horror and beauty. Between the hell of seeing our plastic show up in such horrible ways in the stomachs of these baby birds and the paradise of the tropical island lovingly guarded and protected as a marine sanctuary, covered by millions of these creatures they are not afraid of people,” he enumerates.
Altogether, Jordan visited Midway eight times.
He also spent four years producing his documentary Albatross, which was released in 2018 just a year after two other landmark releases that also highlighted the impact of pollution on marine life: David Attenborough’s BBC series Blue Planet 2 and the awardwinning Netflix series Oceans of Plastic. , produced by filmmaker Jo Ruxton.
Make people identify themselves
Jo Ruxton is the founder of the Ocean Generation organization, which works to protect the oceans. She included a sequence in her film about the plastics that threaten Midway albatrosses.
“What resonates with Jordan’s photos is that people see things they could have thrown away,” she says.
“You can see little bits of plastic in little creatures like clams, oysters and even zooplankton but when you see things that we actually use that have passed through our hands, then people can understand.”
Ruxton is holding a large jar filled with colorful plastic everyday objects—a printer cartridge, a golf ball, a toothbrush, four disposable lighters. All of these items came from the stomachs of albatrosses.
“In my lectures, it touches people’s hearts and minds,” she says. “Understanding the ocean should be in our DNA.”
Jordan knows photography has helped raise awareness about plastic pollution.
“There was a huge ocean activism that was triggered all over the world at once,” he recalls.
“NGOs clean beaches and [defendendo] Plastic legislation, schooling, toxicity lawsuits. It was spectacular to see.
In May 2023, scientists at the Natural History Museum in London identified plasticity, a new seabird disease caused by ingestion of plastic.
It damages the digestive tract of seabirds and causes sores. In severe cases, the disease leads to infections and parasites, reducing the ability to digest food efficiently.
“There’s no question that things are improving before that, there was very little legislation,” says Ruxton.
Countries around the world have bans on everything from plastic microbeads in toothpaste to flexible cotton swabs and plastic bags.
In June, 175 countries continued negotiations to finalize a global plastics treaty that will become law by 2024.
This new international agreement will define a much broader and more coordinated approach to reducing global plastic pollution, taking action such as taxing virgin plastic and banning all unnecessary singleuse plastic items.
The countries agreed to create a first version of the treaty by November 2023.
But when it comes to finding solutions, Jordan still feels something is missing. He believes that at the heart of this crisis lies the societal disconnect between actions and their impact on the environment.
For him, successfully tackling plastic pollution means reestablishing a strong relationship with nature.
“Millions are waking up [mas] The strangest thing is that the vast majority of people who hold power in our world, the presidents and heads of corporations and large institutions, are the least connected,” he says.
“Whenever I was with birds that were dying, and often after they were dying, I just cried,” he says.
“The grief was unbelievable until one day I understood the reason I was so sorry is because I love her.”
“This is grief a direct experience of love for something we are losing or that is grieving. I let go to feel complete. It’s a transition.”
Jordan believes that connecting with nature and simply being considerate of the world around us, without waiting for things to get better one day, really leads to positive change.
Read the original version of this report on the BBC Future website.