2018 Photo Contest, Environment, 3rd prize

Amazon: Paradise Threatened

Photographer

Daniel Beltra

18 February, 2017

Residencial Salvação, a public housing project for 15,000 people, built on land cleared from the rainforest on the edge of the city of Santarém, Pará. Santarém, the financial and economic center of the western part of the state, has undergone sharp population growth since 2000.

After declining from major peaks in 1995 and 2004, the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased sharply in 2016, under pressure from logging, mining, agriculture and hydropower developments. The Amazon forest is one of Earth’s great ‘carbon sinks’, absorbing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and acting as a climate regulator. Without it, the world’s ability to lock up carbon would be reduced, compounding the effects of global warming.

About the photographer

Daniel Beltra

Technical information

Shutter Speed
1/1250
Focal length
90.0 mm
F-Stop
6.3
ISO
320

This image is collected in