The Myth of the Compartment: Why "Keeping Politics Out of It" is Killing the Wild

“Keep politics out of it.”

I wish I could. I wish I could look through my lens and see only the light on the wings of a bird or the unyielding patience of a mountain range. I wish the wild were a sanctuary with a heavy door that we could lock against the noise of the evening news. But that door doesn't exist.

If you care about animals, Mother Nature, and the humans we share this planet with, it is impossible right now to compartmentalize politics. To attempt to do so is to ignore the very forces that determine whether the subjects we capture will exist a decade from now. It doesn't matter what country you live in; your local air, your water, and your wildlife are being reshaped by what is happening in the United States, Iran, Gaza, and beyond.

We cannot separate the blood spilled on the soil from the life that is supposed to grow from it. It is all connected.

The atrocities currently being visited upon human beings are not isolated events. They are environmental catastrophes. When we witness the destruction in places like Gaza, we aren't just seeing a humanitarian crisis; we are seeing the erasure of the land itself. When agricultural soil is poisoned by munitions and heavy metals, it is a permanent wound. When the noise of bombardment disorients migratory species and strands marine life, the "wild" is a direct casualty of war. We cannot separate the blood spilled on the soil from the life that is supposed to grow from it. It is all connected.

Mother Nature does not recognize the lines we draw on a map. She only knows the air we share, the water that flows between us, and the life that persists in spite of our conflicts. To protect her, we must protect each other.

This connection is just as local as it is global. In the United States, we are watching a systematic defunding of the programs that serve as the last line of defence for the natural world. This isn't just a matter of "budgeting." When we slash the budgets of the EPA and the National Park Service, we are choosing to become blind. We are firing the scientists who monitor our air and the rangers who protect our public lands from poaching and exploitation.

By withdrawing from international climate treaties and stripping funding from global research, we are essentially announcing that the wild is no longer a priority. Defunding a conservation program is a political act with biological consequences. It is a slow-motion atrocity that leaves our ecosystems vulnerable and voiceless.

To love nature is to protect it, and to protect it, we must acknowledge the forces that threaten it. We cannot advocate for animals while ignoring the politics that destroy its habitat or the human suffering that leads to the collapse of environmental protections.

If you love animals, politics cannot be avoided.

We can no longer afford the luxury of looking away.

We can no longer afford the luxury of looking away. If we want a world left to capture, we have to admit that the wild is not a separate room. It is the very ground we stand on, and right now, that ground is being traded away, bombed, and defunded. We have to keep politics in the conversation, because politics is what decides if there is a wild left at all.

Advocacy for the wild is impossible without the safety and solidarity of the humans who inhabit it.

What We Can Do When Systems Fail

When the systems meant to protect our planet are dismantled, the responsibility shifts to us to fill the vacuum. We can start by becoming the eyes and ears of the scientific community through citizen science, using tools like iNaturalist or eBird to document species that the government may no longer be tracking. We can "rewild" our own immediate surroundings by planting native species and reducing light pollution to support migratory birds. By shifting our spending toward businesses that refuse to participate in deforestation and by supporting local land trusts, we can create small, resilient sanctuaries that exist outside the reach of federal budget cuts. We must also remain vigilant about the agencies that still hold power. When the domestic operations of agencies like ICE target vulnerable communities, they create a climate of fear that ripples through our conservation efforts. When the people living on the front lines of our ecosystems are terrorized, the community-led work that wildlife depends on begins to collapse. Advocacy for the wild is impossible without the safety and solidarity of the humans who inhabit it.

We protect the wild by refusing to compartmentalize it, by staying informed, and by recognizing that every small, intentional act is a vote for the world we want to see survive.

Ultimately, we must refuse to let the wild become a silent casualty of our political exhaustion. While we may feel powerless to stop a war or a budget freeze, we are not powerless in our own communities. Writing a personalized letter to a local representative or volunteering our professional skills to a conservation group ensures that the conversation stays alive. We protect the wild by refusing to compartmentalize it, by staying informed, and by recognizing that every small, intentional act is a vote for the world we want to see survive.

We cannot pretend the wild is a separate reality when the air it breathes and the soil it depends on are the very things we are trading away in rooms of power. As photographers, conservationists, observers, and lovers of this earth, our role is not just to capture the beauty that remains, but to be honest about the shadows falling across it. We must stop looking for an escape and start looking for a way to stand our ground. By refusing to look away from the human cost of our politics, we honour the wild. We prove that it is worth the fight, worth the funding, and, above all, worth our unwavering attention.