For over 20 years, natural history photographer Adam Oswell and journalist Ben Davies have documented the illegal wildlife trade, rapid loss of biodiversity and the looming threat of zoonotic pandemics. From Africa to Australasia, across Europe, the Americas and Asia, their frontline investigations expose the corruption, poverty and desperation perpetuating the defining environmental challenges of our time. Despite the seemingly impossible task of regaining ecological equilibrium, the Salvation Project is a message of hope, highlighting nature’s remarkable regenerative abilities and celebrating the people dedicating their lives to conservation against the odds.
Through persistence, risk and carefully cultivated relationships with those trying to restore balance as well as those at the criminal end of the spectrum, they have gained access to places, people and perspectives unseen by the public and hidden from the headlines. This behind-the-scenes documentary follows Adam and Ben’s continued fieldwork across Australia, Africa, Nepal, Indonesia and Myanmar. Utilising their extensive in-country knowledge and closely protected access channels, we step through a back door into a complex world of crisis, conservation and coexistence. By exploring their methods and motivations, we reveal the stories behind the stories they have spent more than two decades documenting.
To understand the origins of their environmental work, we return to Bangkok in the early 2000s. Through personal archival material and anecdotes recounting confronting situations and a kaleidoscope of characters, we trace how two expats became drawn into a complex web that has shaped the course of their lives. Through their journey, we encounter the people working and living closest to these crises, witnessing first-hand what it takes to continually confront them and raise a level of awareness capable of influencing policy, gaining scientific credibility and empowering a new generation of conservationists.
