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Outlook: Photographing genocide broke me, it took a forest to heal me

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Sebastião Salgado in Kuwait

17/06/2024 GMT

Photographing genocide broke me, it took a forest to heal me

BBC World Service - Outlook, Photographing genocide broke me, it took a forest to heal me

Sebastião Salgado witnessed years of human suffering, planting trees gave him hope again

Decades photographing human suffering left Sebastião Salgado a broken man. He retreated to his family farm in Brazil, and planted 2 million trees to heal himself and the land.

Sebastião Salgado has travelled all over the world with his camera. Described by some as the most famous living photographer, his images have won numerous awards and are instantly recognisable. They're stunning black and white photographs depicting humanity in all its beauty and ugliness. He's witnessed terrible suffering, in famines and genocides and has paid a heavy price psychologically. But he's also found a way to heal himself on a grand and inspiring scale. Our story begins, and ends, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, on his huge family farm, a lush landscape ful of birds, monkeys and waterfalls. 

Sebastião was recently presented with the Sony World Photography Award for Outstanding Contribution to Photography.

Wendy Baxter began climbing trees as a child and she's never stopped. Wendy has spent much of her working life climbing the emperor of all tree species, the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the United States. These trees can live thousands of years and grow to a height of more than one hundred meters. Despite her own fear of heights, Wendy climbs them to study the effects of climate change. This interview was first broadcast in June 2017.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Andrea Kennedy

(Photo: Sebastião Salgado in Kuwait, 1991. Credit: Peter Dejong)

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