MADAGASCAR: BOIS DE ROSE Toby Smith
17 April – 26 April
Barbican Mezzanine | Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS
www.barbican.org.uk

© Toby Smith/Reportage by Getty Images

In February 2009 Madagascar’s coup d’etat saw a new interim government seize power. Powerful international traders took the opportunity to intensify illegal deforestation in the remote North-East of the country by extracting rare Rosewood and Ebony for the world market.

Spanning 3 expeditions, Toby Smith’s ambitious project first identified logging areas then, at close proximity. documented the activity within UNESCO protected rainforests. Finally, posing as a timber buyer he worked undercover to penetrate the timber traders industry with the Environmental Investigation Agency. Subsequent evidence was presented to US Federal Agents who utilising new wildlife laws have seized goods and files to prosecute Gibson Guitars for their involvement. The ongoing investigation continues along trade routes to China and Germany and the current project has been recently published across 17 pages in GEO magazine (Germany).

SALT WATER TEARS  Munem Wasif
23 April – 8 May
Free Word Centre | 60 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3GA
Info. 0207 3242 570 www.freewordonline.com

© Munem Wasif, courtesy of Prix Pictet 2008

Salt Water Tears by award winning photographer Munem Wasif shows the Satkhira region of south-east Bangladesh in this poignant exhibition. As a result of climate change and unplanned shrimp farming this region experiences erratic rainfall and a steady increase in the salinity of the water table, making safe water increasingly scarce.

Where once there was fertile grazing, cows now have to swim through inundated land in search of food. A woman scoops water from a contaminated pond into a drinking pot. Changes in the environment now mean that villagers are forced to venture deeper into the Sunderbans forest to make their living and search for water, resulting in an increase in people killed by Bengal tigers. Wasif’s stunning and graphic imagery brings these realities starkly into focus. These images were made for international NGO WaterAid, which is working in partnership with the people in Satkhira to improve access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation.

In association with Water Aid