Seattle Photographer

Nina has photographed something we all need to be aware of especially here in the Pacific Northwest.

British Columbia is in the midst of a mountain pine beetle epidemic with millions of trees dying from the pine beetle infestation. Nina Berman narrates her portfolio of images from her Consequences by NOOR climate change project, British Columbia l Pine Beetles

Since 1990, more than 36 million acres of pine forests in British Columbia have been decimated by the mountain pine beetle. Experts predict that by 2014 at least 80 percent of the pines in British Columbia will be dead. No larger than a grain of rice, the pine beetle is endemic in Rocky Mountains of western North American. Winter temperatures below minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit once kept the beetle in check. Warming trends have permitted the beetle larvae to survive the winter and proliferate at an astounding rate in forests from Mexico to Canada. Mature pine trees, weakened by drought, cannot withstand the onslaught, and as the beetle multiplies, younger trees also are falling prey. Dead trees are fodder for wild fires. The beetle kill has wreaked havoc on the economy of regions dependent upon logging and tourism. Authorities acknowledge that man cannot stop the rampage of the pine beetle. The beetle will eat until it runs out of food or until deeply cold winter temperatures return to kill its larvae. ?I felt,? says Berman, ?like I was seeing a cataclysmic shift in our understanding of what forests look like.

Nina’s portfolio is part of a larger project from Noor.:

From the frontiers of climate change comes Consequences by NOOR. Featuring the work of nine, internationally acclaimed photographers, this exhibition documents the devastating effects of climate change around the globe. These stunning photographs show not what might happen in the future but what is happening today.

The subjects include: a massive pine beetle kill in British Columbia, genocide in Darfur, the rising sea level in the Maldives, Nenet reindeer herders in Siberia, Inuit hunters in Greenland, a looming crisis in Kolkata, India, coal mining in Poland, oil sand extraction in Canada and the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest by Brazilian cattle ranchers.

Consequences by NOOR premiers at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, December 7 through December 18, 2009.

Consequences by NOOR goes on tour in 2010 and is available for booking. View our PRESS PAGE for information.