Obsessed with wildlife

A storyteller and a photographer by occupation, Valenzuela has witnessed the world’s unique wildlife and nature because he travels with a vigilant eye.

The National Geographic photo journalist, Jorge Valenzuela is in Uganda to capture the Pearl of Africa’s beauty. He told Flavia Nalubega and Juliet Kigongo about his experiences around the world and why he is glad to be in Uganda

His love for nature has not allowed Jorge Camilo Valenzuela, 35, to have a family. He neither has a wife nor children.
“I’m not married and I do not have any child since I’m always walking through the jungle in heavy humidity and rainfall, enduring the sting of mosquito bites and leeches which no woman can handle and I like it although I get girlfriends in every country I go to,’’ he said.

This Frenchman who grew up in Brazil before moving to France is a citizen of the world who travels tirelessly with a consuming passion for wildlife and nature.

A storyteller and a photographer by occupation, Valenzuela has witnessed the world’s unique wildlife and nature because he travels with a vigilant eye.

His love for wildlife started as early as eight years of age when he first acquired himself an Encyclopedia about animals and plants.

“This book was so expensive but I asked my dad to buy it for me because I loved animals and nature,” he said.

He is also an author of photographic books at Vilo editions and National Geographic in Brazil, namely Borneo au Coour de la Foret Ormaire and Amazonia la Source re Tiouvee.

His love for nature in particular is the uniqueness with which it was created. Valenzuela finds joy in seeing new plants and animals everyday in every different continent he moves to. He captures them in video and photography which he exposes to the world through several exhibitions. He has done so in cities around the world like Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona and Madrid.
The French traveller is as well involved in artistic projects linked to nature and its preservation.

Having explored the continent of Asia and Amazonia, he chose to come to Africa, this time to camp in Uganda where he is going to explore wildlife.

He arrived in the country on January 1, and he plans to stay for two years studying its unique wildlife and nature, which he says is period he would use to promote the country’s tourism industry.

“I will be going to Mt Rwenzori game park, Mgahinga Game Park and Bwindi impenetrable forest where I will spend about five months in each area studying the animals. When I live with animals for a while they become friendly to me, I too master their life style then I can take photographs with ease.”

Valenzuela thinks that other people should share with Uganda what it has like the chimpanzees and gorillas and he is ready to ensure that he exposes all the photography and videos of Uganda’s wildlife to the world through his usual exhibitions.
This he says will help boom Uganda’s tourism industry like it did for the Amazon when he exhibited the jaguar in Brazil.

While here, in a deep water body between a densely populated forest he met the jaguar, an animal that lives in the water. While in need to get the best shot of this animal, he maneuvered through angry crocodiles with his boat which he calls his best friend because it has saved his life on several occasions, successfully took a perfect photo of this mammal, after which he dived away, escaping the man eater narrowly.
He recalls yet another interesting experience in this continent when he found the rarest animal on the entire planet earth, the giant otter, a mammal that lives in groups with its fellow family members in the water.

“This is a rare animal that only lives in unpolluted water. It cannot thrive in contaminated water and that is why it is difficult to come across,” he said.

He praises Asia for its Pocepes, a monkey species that is unique to this continent because that is its ethnic home. He says this attracted thousands of tourists to Asia after his exhibition held in Brazil where people picked interest in the animal and floated to the country to have their eyes direct on God’s unique creation.

Having spent less than a month in Africa he cannot rule out what is unique about this continent but liked the mountain gorillas and he is yet to explore more during the two years he is to spend here.

Despite the joy that has come with his job, he has nasty experiences about it.

“An insect fell in my right eye and I almost lost it because it had to swell due to the poisonous acids it poured in it while I was trying to make a shot of a water animal in Asia,” he narrated.

He says that at one time he broke his leg while in the Amazon and the doctor told him to stay in the house for three months, which he found so boring. “I gained weight of 90kgs because I was only eating without doing any work.

He also tells of a time while in the middle of a forest in the same continent, on a tree 20m long, wasps attacked him, stung his back and face. He could hardly jump because below him was a river, so running down the tree was frightening but he had to do it and he suffered pain for days.

Despite all these torments he has undergone, Valenzuela’s love for nature never dies. He is determined to move on further to more continents and his dream is to move around the entire globe and discover the difference in the world’s wildlife, to allure people to move around the globe in search for these hidden treasures.

He has made many people understand reality, an immortalising presence that converts our image of the wildlife to real life.
He hopes to promote Uganda’s tourism industry if given chance by the Ministry of Tourism to explore the nation.

By Flavia Nalubega and Juliet Kigongo.