Cristina Mittermeier

Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier is one of conservation photography's newest proponents. Her work focuses on the delicate relationship between nature's most spectacular and endangered wildlife and earth's vanishing traditional human cultures. This unique view of people and nature lies at the heart of her work and is the key to understanding why her images are so poignant and beautiful. Her ultimate mission is to reconnect people's lives to nature through the use of photography.

Photography was not Mittermeier's first career choice. She was trained as a marine biologist, and through the years became a biodiversity conservation consultant. The need to pick up a camera came after she had already published a number of scientific papers dealing with the loss of biodiversity and human cultures, and she found herself short of words to express her emotional connection to the issues in which she was involved.

Her work has been published in several books, including six she has co-authored with other scientists and photographers: Megadiversity: Earth's Biologically Wealthiest (1996), Hotspots: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions (1998), Wilderness Areas: Earth's Last Wild Places (2002), Wildlife Spectacles (2003), Hotspots Revisited: Earth's Biologically Wealthiest and Most Endangered Ecosystems (2005), Transboundary Conservation: A New Vision for Protected Areas (2005) and Human Footprint: Challenges for Wilderness and Biodiversity, with the Wildlife Conservation Society (2006). These books have become benchmarks for conservation efforts around the world.

Mittermeier's work also has been featured in National Geographic, National Geographic Explorer and Nature's Best Photography Magazine in the United States, Rumbos in Mexico, and Explorador and Terra Magazine in Brazil.

In addition to being a biodiversity consultant, Cristina is on the Advisory Board of Nature's Best Foundation, Chairman's Council of Conservation International and board of directors of the WILD Foundation. She co-chairs the International Committee of the North American Nature Photography Association and is on the editorial board of The Wildlife Professional magazine. She is executive director of the International League of Conservation Photography (ILCP), an initiative aiming at using photography to further environmental and cultural conservation through photography.

Born in Mexico City and raised in sunny Cuernavaca, Mittermeier now makes her home in Great Falls, Va., outside of Washington, D.C., with her husband Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, and their two younger children.

As a marine biologist, she did fieldwork in the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of California. Her work as a conservationist and photographer has taken her to more than 50 countries, including some of the most remote areas of our planet. She speaks three languages fluently and is an advanced scuba diver.