The award-winning wildlife photographer explains why global attention has become a form of conservation capital — and why species without media visibility increasingly struggle to survive.


In the summer of 2024, a pygmy hippopotamus calf born in a Thai zoo unexpectedly became one of the internet’s biggest animal celebrities. Moo Deng’s image spread globally within days, turning a little-known species into a viral phenomenon.

Yet the international fascination stopped almost entirely at the zoo enclosure.

The species’ largest remaining wild population — concentrated in Liberia’s Sapo National Park and surrounding rainforest ecosystems — saw no comparable wave of conservation investment, policy momentum or international media focus.

The contrast is difficult to ignore.

In 2002, only 94 Iberian lynxes remained in the wild. Today, after more than €88 million in EU LIFE conservation funding, sustained public campaigns and two decades of political coordination, the population exceeds 2,000 animals. The IUCN has since downgraded the species from Endangered to Vulnerable, making the Iberian lynx one of the most successful conservation recoveries in modern Europe.

Wildlife photographer Alexandra Surkova has spent six years documenting that transformation. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, BBC Earth, El País, WWF campaigns and Sony editorial projects. She is the recipient of gold at the European Photography Awards and platinum at the London Photography Awards. Her solo exhibition Wild Voicesis currently touring Spain, while her educational initiative Future Guardians launches this year in Rwanda.


For Forbes Liberia, Kseniia Shaverskaya, together with journalist Anna Shaverni, spoke with Surkova about conservation economics, the politics of visibility, and why endangered species increasingly compete not only for habitat — but for human attention.


Kseniia Shaverskaya:

Most international coverage frames the Iberian lynx recovery as a scientific and institutional success story — breeding programs, habitat restoration, EU grants. After documenting it for six years, what did the story actually look like from inside the conservation process?

Alexandra Surkova:

From the inside, it looked far less like a miracle and far more like a long political and cultural negotiation.

People often focus on the €88 million because numbers are tangible. But funding is never the first stage of conservation. Funding arrives after society emotionally accepts that a species deserves to survive.

That process took years in Spain.

The lynx became part of national identity long before the population recovered. Schools discussed it. Regional governments used it symbolically. Environmental organizations turned it into a recognizable cultural figure. The media repeated the story continuously until the disappearance of the lynx stopped being viewed as a niche ecological problem and became a national concern.

Only then did large-scale institutional investment become politically possible.

Conservation is often presented as biology, but in reality it is also sociology, psychology and public communication. Species survive not only because ecosystems are restored, but because enough people decide emotionally and politically that restoration matters.

Anna Shaverni:

You often describe visibility itself as a conservation resource. Why has public attention become so important for survival?

Alexandra Surkova:

Because visibility determines priority.

Species that become visually recognizable attract researchers, donors, NGOs, documentary projects and political pressure. They generate emotional familiarity. And familiarity creates value inside public consciousness.

The difficult reality is that many endangered species disappear not because conservationists don’t care, but because the broader public never formed a relationship with them.

The pygmy hippopotamus illustrates this perfectly. It is one of the rarest large mammals on Earth, yet outside conservation circles many people still don’t know it exists. Meanwhile, a single zoo-born calf briefly generated more global visibility than the species had received in decades.

That tells us something uncomfortable about modern conservation: attention has become part of ecological infrastructure.

In the 21st century, species compete not only for territory and survival — they compete for visibility inside the global information system.

Kseniia Shaverskaya:

Have you personally witnessed photography changing the way people relate to wildlife?

Alexandra Surkova:

Yes, and often in unexpected ways.

A Spanish hunter once contacted me after seeing my lynx photographs. Given how politically sensitive predators can be in rural Spain, I expected criticism. Instead, he told me that my images had convinced him to buy a camera. He said he now spends more time observing wildlife than hunting it.

That message stayed with me because it demonstrated how visual narratives can alter identity itself.

Photography does not change policy directly. But it changes perception. And perception eventually changes behavior, voting patterns, funding priorities and political language.

The scale may differ, but the mechanism remains the same. If one image can change how one person sees a lynx, millions of repeated encounters over decades can change how entire societies value biodiversity.

Anna Shaverni:

Much of conservation photography relies on tragedy — dying animals, destruction, emotional shock. Your work feels intentionally different.

Alexandra Surkova:

Because fear and guilt are effective only for a limited amount of time.

There is a psychological phenomenon called compassion fatigue. When people are exposed continuously to suffering, they begin emotionally disengaging as a form of self-protection.

Modern media often underestimates this.

I wanted to photograph wildlife differently — not as victims waiting for rescue, but as complex, powerful forms of life that possess intrinsic value independent of human pity.

The Iberian lynx is not important because it is endangered. It is important because it is extraordinary.

When viewers encounter dignity, intelligence and presence in an animal, the emotional response becomes more durable than temporary sadness. Long-term conservation requires long-term emotional investment.

Kseniia Shaverskaya:

Liberia became the first country to adopt a national conservation strategy specifically for the pygmy hippopotamus. What would realistically be necessary for the species to experience a recovery comparable to the Iberian lynx?

Alexandra Surkova:

First, it’s important to acknowledge that the conditions are fundamentally different.

Europe’s conservation successes were built inside wealthy institutional systems with stable infrastructure, healthcare, education and long-term public financing. Many West African countries operate under very different social and economic pressures.

It is difficult to discuss biodiversity preservation with communities facing immediate economic insecurity. Conservation cannot function as an isolated moral project disconnected from human realities.

For recovery to happen sustainably, conservation must create value locally — economically, educationally and socially.

At the same time, international visibility matters enormously. Global conservation funding still flows disproportionately toward species and ecosystems that are culturally recognizable in Europe and North America.

That imbalance affects everything: scientific research, tourism, philanthropy, media coverage and policy attention.

The pygmy hippopotamus does not only need protection. It needs narrative presence.

Anna Shaverni:

Your next project, Future Guardians, launches this year in Rwanda. What is the long-term idea behind it?

Alexandra Surkova:

The project is based on a very simple principle: people protect what they feel connected to.

We are giving children tools to document the ecosystems around them through photography, storytelling, drawing and video. The goal is not only artistic expression. It is emotional ownership.

Too often, African wildlife is documented primarily by outsiders for foreign audiences. But long-term conservation cannot depend entirely on external narratives.

The future of conservation in Africa will ultimately depend on whether local communities see wildlife not as an external agenda, but as part of their own cultural identity and future economic stability.

If one day Liberian children themselves become the primary storytellers of pygmy hippos and rainforest ecosystems, that would represent a far more important conservation milestone than any photograph I could personally produce.

Kseniia Shaverskaya:

When you look at conservation, media systems and environmental collapse together, what larger pattern do you see?

Alexandra Surkova:

I think humanity still misunderstands its own position inside nature.

We behave as though ecosystems are external assets that can be damaged without consequence. But we are not separate observers standing outside the system. We are biologically, economically and psychologically embedded within it.

When biodiversity collapses, invisible systems collapse alongside it — water cycles, climate stability, food systems, social resilience.

The disappearance of one species is never isolated. It signals fragmentation inside a much larger living structure.

And perhaps the most dangerous illusion of modern civilization is believing that structure can continue functioning indefinitely without the natural world that sustains it.

For now, Moo Deng’s viral fame has not translated into measurable increases in funding, research attention or international conservation engagement for Liberia’s remaining wild pygmy hippo populations.

The visibility gap between the famous zoo animal and the rainforest ecosystems where the species still survives remains enormous.

As Surkova argues, modern conservation increasingly operates inside an economy of attention — where visibility itself can determine which species receive a future, and which quietly disappear beyond the boundaries of global awareness.