About this photograph :
Caravane de dromadaires
Dromedary caravan in the dunes, near Nouakchott, Mauritania (18°09’ N – 15°29’ W). The Sahara, the world’s largest sandy desert, covers 3.5 million square miles (9 million km2)—equivalent to the area of the United States—spread over eleven countries. Mauritania, which lies on its western border, is three-quarters desert and is thus particularly vulnerable to the phenomenon of desertification. Excessive grazing, harvesting of firewood, and agricultural expansion are gradually destroying soil-retaining vegetation on the perimeters of the great dune ranges. This facilitates the advance of sand, which today endangers cities, including the capital, Nouakchott. In 1960 the town was laid out on a grassy plain, several days of walk from the Sahara, but now has the desert on its doorstep. In arid and semiarid zones (which make up two-thirds of the continent of Africa), fragile arable lands deteriorate rapidly if farming and other exploitation become too intensive. In the past half-century, 65% of arable lands in Africa have suffered degradation, resulting in a drop in agricultural yield. In this vicious cycle, so difficult to break, poverty is both a cause and a consequence of the depletion of arable soil and the decline in agricultural productivity.
About the artist :
Yann
Arthus-Bertrand
Movie actor, then responsible for an animal sanctuary in the sixties. Air balloon pilot in Kenya in the seventies. He began the photography to illustrate his thesis on the lions. He struggled to carry out his exhibit The Earth from Above, which attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. His book of the same title became a true best seller. Eternal lover of Earth and man, he devotes his work to the defense of populations and places in precarious situation. His book 365 days: Earth from Above dedicates each day of the year to an endangered site. The passion of the public allows hoping that the call of this photographer has been heard. Humbly, Yann Arthus Bertrand assures that his photographs, of striking beauty, do nothing but to reproduce the world. Still it is necessary to know how to look at it. The colorful, resplendent, singularly geometrical images that he brings back from here and elsewhere form one of the most beautiful anthems to the earth.