Though Krista Schlyer’s work as a conservation photographer and writer has taken her all over the country and into Mexico, in recent years she’s been focused on a landmark closer to home: the Anacostia River.
Schlyer, who lives in Mount Rainier, Maryland, has documented every aspect of the river she can cover — its creatures, its landscape, even its pollution. Last fall, she published seven years’ worth of her photos and research in River of Redemption: Almanac of Life on the Anacostia.
The book chronicles several seasons of the Anacostia, including personal reflections from Schlyer and explorations of the river’s complex history — from its days as a teeming ecosystem that supported the Nacotchtank tribe, through decades of deforestation and toxic pollution, into present-day conservation efforts.
“The message I focus on in my Anacostia work is a sense of value for this place that was destroyed, degraded and polluted for the past century because we didn’t have a sense of respect and value for this ecosystem,” Schlyer said in an interview. “A lot of work I do tries to help convey a sense of the beauty, worth and value of the river for us and all the species that live around us.”
Schlyer also created a corresponding online story map, “River of Resilience,” with support from the Anacostia Waterfront Trust and the DC Department of Energy & Environment.
The Anacostia project is the latest from Schlyer’s 15 years in conservation photography and writing, during which she has tackled subjects like climate change, endangered species and wildlife migration corridors. She has published four books, including Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall, which won the 2013 National Outdoor Book Award. In 2014, she received the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography.
Schlyer first felt drawn in this direction in the early 2000s, when she decided to take time off from her work as a political journalist in DC to travel around the country. She spent a year staying in national parks and forests.
“After that experience, I decided I wanted to direct my life toward saving natural places and wildlife in urban environments like we have here in DC,” she said.
The Anacostia River has long been an area of fascination for Schlyer. Aside from her research for the book — which included several visits to photograph the restoration efforts of the Anacostia Watershed Society — she likes to take early-morning kayak trips there.
“I love looking at all the birds and fog on the river,” she said. “It gives me a sense of peace.”
She’s particularly interested in Buzzard Point, the area far downstream where the Anacostia converges with the Potomac River. That name is now almost synonymous with Audi Field, the home stadium for DC United, but Schlyer said many don’t realize this is the most important place for freshwater mussel restoration in the Anacostia.
“Freshwater mussels are filter feeders and help clean the river,” Schlyer said. “They help ultimately with river health.” For River of Redemption, some of her photos focused specifically on these mussels, including underwater shots.
On her website, Schlyer says her book was inspired by Aldo Leopold’s 1949 classic, A Sand County Almanac, an essay collection exploring modern conservation science, policy and ethics.
For her earlier book, 2012’s Continental Divide, Schlyer dove into the wildlife, human history and culture of the U.S.-Mexico border through essays and photos. For Earth Day this week, she was in Texas, celebrating the release of a film based on her eight years of work along that border, Ay Mariposa. The project has grown all the more timely with construction of a border wall that environmentalists warn will harm endangered species that have been free to roam throughout their natural habitat — a focal point for the film.
As part of her research, Schlyer took part in a 17-member borderland expedition stretching thousands of miles with members of the International League of Conservation Photographers. She also curated a traveling exhibit from that adventure that has been presented at the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate and staged throughout the country.
For more information on Schlyer’s photos and writings, visit her website, kristaschlyer.com.
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