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Voyage to the Fragile Beauty of Antarctica |
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By Julio Godoy*
The
international renowned photographer Sebastiao Salgado shares with
Tierramérica his first days aboard the Tara, which set sail this
month on an Antarctic expedition.
''We want to document the beauty and the fragility of our planet,''
said the Brazilian artist.
PARIS - ''They are some of the most beautiful
images I have seen in my life,'' says Sebastiao Salgado, renowned
Brazilian photographer, about the natural landscapes he has captured
on film during his first days aboard the French scientific research
sailboat ''Tara'' as it travels through Antarctic waters.
''We have been very fortunate because the weather has been magnificent''
for photographing the wonders of Cape Horn, at the far southern
tip of South America, the Drake Passage, connecting the Atlantic
and Pacific Islands, and the South Shetland, Arturo Pratt and Hope
islands, Salgado told Tierramérica in a telephone interview via
satellite from the ''Tara''.
The two-masted ship set sail Jan. 5 from Chile's Port Williams,
some 2,400 km south of Santiago, as part of the project Genesis,
which Salgado launched in 2004 with the backing of the United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP) and United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The aim of Genesis is to photograph, over a period of eight years,
''the pure and virginal face and nature and of humanity,'' summarized
the photographer.
The project has four chapters, and the first, ''Creation'', seeks
to record the remnants of the natural pristine state of isolated
areas, with a focus on ''air, water and fire, which gave life.''
This phase is under way, but began last year in Ecuador's Galápagos
Islands, the jungles of Virungas in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, and Argentina's Peninsula Valdez, 1,000 km south of Buenos
Aires, a breeding ground where thousands of whales gather every
September.
The subsequent chapters will be "Noah's Ark", about animal species
that have resisted domestication; ''The First Men", about remote
tribes who maintain their ancestral ways of life; and finally, ''The
First Civilizations", about the oldest remnants of human settlements.
''The purpose of our project is to education and to protect the
environment. We want simultaneously to document the beauty and the
fragility of our planet,'' explained Salgado, who plans to wrap
up this effort in 2011 with the publication of a book and a traveling
exhibit of his photographic work.
The ''Tara'' has two masts that stand 27 meters tall, and the vessel
itself is 26 meters long and 10 meters wide. The sails are more
than 400 square meters. The hull is reinforced with aluminum to
protect the boat as it sails amongst icebergs.
Fifteen years ago the vessel carried environmental teams. With the
name ''Seamaster'', it served the legendary New Zealand seaman Peter
Blake, special U.N. representative, who was murdered by pirates
in December 2001 during an expedition in the Amazon. After Blake's
death, it was acquired by Frenchman Etienne Bourgois, who re-baptized
the boat ''Tara'' and coordinates the current expedition.
Thus the story comes full circle. Before the boat was sailed by
Blake, it was owned by another French ecologist, Jean-Louis Etienne,
a veteran of scientific expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic
Ocean. And some of the people who took part of those endeavors are
now serving as the Tara's crew.
Etienne Bourgois told Tierramérica that this voyage with Salgado
is also preparation for another expedition to the Arctic, which
is slated for two years beginning in late 2006, to study the effects
of climate change on the glaciers of the far north. The project
has been dubbed ''Arctic Drift'' and also commemorates the International
Polar Year 2007.
But on the current expedition in Antarctica, ''we still must resolve
some technical problems. For example, improve efficiency in the
use of fuel and heating to withstand temperatures that are dozens
of degrees below zero,'' he explained.
Accompanying Bourgois and Salgado are several scientists, who are
taking advantage of this adventurous opportunity to classify the
Antarctic's marine plants and animals. One of these experts is marine
biologist Laurent Ballesta, who dove into the icy waters of the
Drake Passage.
''At around 30 meters deep, the swale is still,'' wrote Ballesta
in the Tara Logbook on Jan. 5.
''You realize how the wildlife, fauna and flora, adapt itself to
survive in these moving waters. The kelp is attached to the rocks
by a trunk even bigger than the leaves themselves,'' he added.
The Tara made a stop in the Diego Ramírez archipelago, home to penguins,
pelicans, albatross and the remarkable rockhopper penguin (Eudyptes
chrysocome).
Over the next few weeks the scientific vessel will carry the research
team to the Argentine Islands, the former Chilean base Videla, now
overtaken by gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) and chinstrap penguins
(Pygoscelis antarctica). (See infograph)
Also inhabiting the area are whales and seals, especially the Weddell
seal (Leptonychotes weddellii), which can dive to depths of 600
meters and survive below water for more than an hour.
The ship will then head to the Weddell Sea of the Antarctic, reaching
Deception Island, where the Chilean research station was destroyed
by a volcanic eruption in 1967.
* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent.
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