ABSTRACT
It is ironic perhaps that just as our human made world is saturated with images of non-human creatures, the very survival of many creatures we adore, worship, love and sometimes fear are in danger. It would be a stretch to say that the imaging process, extended as it is through a whole range of new and old media technologies, is a direct cause of their decline although some suggest that it does have some responsibility. It is certain though, as scientists now suggest, that the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002) is the appropriate term for the era we are inhabiting. It is this very human made nature of our overall global environment, and the negative impacts we are subjecting it to, that is the cause of the today’s frightening level and rate of species extinction and habitat destruction. Surely then, given that the imaging process and the nature of our culture are integrally related, it must be incumbent on educators, media and conservation practitioners to engage effectively with the imaging of ‘non-human others’ to raise awareness and develop understanding of this relentless destruction to make a practical positive difference. This is not to oppose ‘progress’ and ‘development’ per se or deny the importance of free critical reflection within higher education or public culture but rather to state quite categorically that we can and should make our world in a different way than we are doing at present. We should ensure there is room, life-space, for both ourselves and those non-human animals that adorn our TV screen and lunge at us from the depths of a giant 3D IMAX movie. After all, both non-humans and humans are animals living in the real world.
