Erg | Reg, a New Book on the Sahara’s Beauty

The Sahara Conservation Fund (SCF) has recently participated in a new beautiful coffee-table book Erg/Reg by Italian photographer, researcher and documentary advisor, Ugo Mellone.

Ugo Mellone specializes in conservation research projects with the aim of raising awareness about threatened species and their habitats through photography. He made contact with SCF in May 2020 as he was aware the organization consistently carries out sensitization activities on this same matter at different scales. He was awarded with the Montphoto grant 2019 and had already returned from the Sahara with a number of impressive photos.

As always willing to promote the cause of this area’s natural and cultural magnificent heritage worldwide, SCF agreed to partner with Ugo on this multilingual (English, French, Italian, Spanish) publication. Meant for the general audience, the book focuses on a variety of landscapes and wildlife species in a region that some can still see as a simple barren wasteland. Fighting this prejudice is part of SCF’s mission – changing perceptions on how life can thrive in arid ecosystems and even recover from extinction also is. That’s why a written piece from John Newby, SCF Senior Adviser, along with some of his most interesting photos of SCF’s conservation activities in the field, have been included to the final product.

Nature and desert enthusiasts should also enjoy this book a lot, finding great comfort browsing through it, especially now that travel restrictions unfortunately prevent many of us from seeing all of that in real life.

The book is available for purchase online here.

SCF and Ugo are grateful to the European Union and the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi for contributing the costs of publishing this beautiful and most timely book.