Mind you, the world is changing. I’m not talking clichés. I’m not talking global warming. I’m not talking coups d'état, counter-counter-coups, ill-conceived insurgencies by self-styled revolutionaries, or the War on Terror. I’m not talking globalization, political polarization, socioeconomic commercialization, or the proliferation of nuclear technologies. People are dying all over. There's earthquakes, genocide, hunger. Malnourished children with puffed-out bellies. Government lackeys stealing disaster relief monies. UN officials debating policy while millions are dying of AIDS. Elephant poaching, deforestation, desertification, overfishing. I don’t even mention sweatshop labor, sexual exploitation, women's rights, ballooning overpopulations, and epidemics of violent crime: I want to stay away from subjects I know little about. Also, I want to depict a different side of the World, something apart from television news footage of evil dictators, famines, and shocking health reports.



The Endangered Planet is a pictorial anthology of 10+ years of travels around the world -- snapshots of our planet frozen in instants of time. The first chapter, "Endangered Places," spotlights a geographic tapestry of natural and urban landscapes: wildlife and city-life under threat of being bulldozed into disappearance. The second section, focuses on "Endangered Lives": the many peoples of our world and their varied lifestyles, some comfortably familiar, some hauntingly exotic, all poised for irrevocable change. The final part of the book, "Endangered Heritage", brings together our collective customs and traditions, a testament of the rich legacy of centuries of history on the brink of collapse or permanent extinction.



Together, these pictures weave a story of the fragility of our World at the dawn of the 21st century. A World, which is being lost one day at a time, in the rush for tomorrow.