Guardians of the Green, an exhibition showing photographs of tropical rainforests taken by Belgium’s late King Leopold III, a keen photographer and pioneer in the defense of the environment, is on display in the Hong Kong Central Library.
His photos captured the tropical rainforests, vital ecosystems on Earth and home to an immense diversity of species, across the Americas, Africa and Asia, including Brazil, Indonesia, Honduras and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Leopold III’s love for nature took root during his travels, from his first trip to rainforests of Brazil in 1920 to a seven-month exploration in the Congo, where he learned Swahili to communicate with locals and learned environmental knowledge from them.
Speaking at the opening ceremony yesterday, Belgian Princess Esmeralda, an environmentalist who has been inspired a lot by her late father, hoped the photos would help raise awareness of the protection of rainforests and its indigenous communities.
“[I hope the exhibition] will motivate all of us to really make an effort, whether we are in businesses, just a simple citizen or officials to have this global collaboration to preserve our most, most important ecosystem.”
The photographs on display in the exhibition were taken by the late King Leopold III.
The Amazon rainforest, a vital part of the global ecosystem, has lost 1.5 million square kilometers to deforestation in 30 years, according to the World Resources Institute. This crisis also threatens the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia.
Salvador Moncada, Honduran ambassador to China, whose country is home to a significant portion of tropical forests in La Mosquitia, said the world cannot allow conflicts and politics to distract it away from climate change, which he described as “a defining challenge of our time.”
Belgium’s consul general in Hong Kong, David Lomastro, said Belgium believes international cooperation is the answer to tackle environmental challenges. “We call for robust multilateralism in order to protect our environment.”
The event, presented by the Embassy of Honduras to China and the Consulate General of Belgium in Hong Kong in cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature, will be open until June 24.
The princess said the exhibition will later go on show in Shanghai and the South Korean capital of Seoul, and then move back to Europe for a stop in Spain in October.
(Jamie Liu)
