Sebastiao Salgado worked as an economist for the International Coffee Organization, often traveling to Africa on missions for the World Bank. In 1973, Salgado switched to photography, working on news assignments before veering to documentary work. Today, Sebastiao Salgado is one of the most respected photojournalists in the world, his reputation forged by decades of dedication and powerful black and white images of dispossessed and distressed people taken in places where most wouldn’t dare to go. His images artfully teach us the disastrous effects of war, poverty, disease, and hostile climatic conditions. In 1999, appalled by the relation between human degradation and environmental degradation, Lelia Deluiz Wanick Salgado and Sebastiao Salgado founded Instituto Terra, a nonprofit organization based in their home town of Aimores, Brazil. Designed to preserve and promote the biodiversity of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, Instituto Terra has become a center of excellence in the areas of restoration, environmental education, sustainable development and social mobilization.