Daniel Mideros (Ecuador) takes a poignant portrait of a disappearing habitat and its inhabitant.
Carefully positioning his camera traps along a wildlife corridor used to reach the high-altitude plateaus surrounding Ecuador's capital Quito, Daniel focused in on the disappearing natural landscape. At the heart of the image, perfectly framed, a spectacled bear gazes down upon the deforested hillsides, farming terraces and the city's urban sprawl.
Spectacled bears are largely herbivorous and rely on the region's páramos and cloud forests for food. Found from western Venezuela to Bolivia, these bears have suffered massive declines as the result of habitat loss and fragmentation. Around the world, as humans continue to build and farm, space for wildlife is increasingly squeezed out.
Sugandhi Gadadhar, wildlife filmmaker and judge said, 'It is almost as if the bear is standing at the very edge of its world, looking back to see what is left of its home, unable to step into the grim and smoky world that lies ahead'.
Ecuador
Photography was initially a hobby for Daniel but after leaving his profession as a publicist he has had the opportunity to visit places and see species that he would have never imagined that existed as well as work with wonderful people, organisations and local communities. Nowadays Daniel's whole life revolves around photography - he has his own photographic tourism company and helps organisations whose objective is to protect nature.
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