Worker resting on bales of cotton, Thonakaha, Korhogo, Ivory Coast. Cotton crops occupy approximately 335,000 square klilometers worldwide, and use nearly one quarter of all pesticides sold. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Sand dune in the heart of vegetation on Fraser island, Queensland, Australia. Fraser Island, named after Eliza Fraser, who was shipwrecked on the island in 1836, is the world's largest sand island. On top of this rather infertile substratum, a humid tropical forest has developed in the midst of which wide dunes intrude, moving with the wind. Fraser Island has important water resources, including nearly 200 freshwater dune lakes, and has varied fauna such as marsupials, birds, and reptiles. Welcoming 200,000 visitors a year without damaging the local fauna and flora is a real challenge to sustainable development on the island, which was declared a World Heritage site by Unesco in 1992. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

The Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix basilica in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast. In 1983, Yamoussoukro replaced Abidjan as the official capital of Ivory Coast. President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who died in 1993, made his native village into a modern city with a grid of wide avenues - which are almost deserted - and every modern facility: international airport, luxury hotels, golf course, prestigious universities, and so forth. Yamoussoukro also boasts the world's biggest basilica, Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix (Our Lady of Peace), consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1990. The former president, who donated this building to the Vatican, insisted that he had financed the basilica's cost out of his own personal fortune. This building was seen as a colossal waste by many Ivorians. It was highly controversial in a country that lacks schools and hospitals and has only nine doctors for every 100,000 inhabitants (compared to 413 in Norway). [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Flock of sheep, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. After the missionary period, between gold fever and the first drillings for oil, sheep-raising became the chief activity in the north of the main island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. The local cabanas (sheep pastures) are huge sheep farms with 3.5 acres of land per head of livestock. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Confluence of the Rio Uruguay and a tributary, Misiones province, Argentina. Drastically cleared to make way for farming, the tropical rainforest of Argentina is now in some areas a less effective defense against erosion than it was in the past. The heavy rains in the province of Misiones (79 inches, per year) wash the soil and carry off significant quantities of iron-rich earth into the Rio Uruguay, turning the waters a dark, reddish color. Carried by the river, this sediment is dumped in the estuary of the Rio de la Plata - the largest on Earth - and accumulates in the access channels to the port of Buenos Aires. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Mountainous countryside near Maelifellssandur, Myrdalsjökull Region, Iceland. Once the young lava fields of Iceland cool down, life begins anew little by little. Ice, wind and water flatten and carve out shapes to begin with, then, during the summer, bacteria, lichen and fungi prepare the soil for plants, in particular mosses which adapt to an environment which remains difficult. These plants colonise the most favourable sites and terrain little by little, forming a new ecosystem. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

"Tree of life", Tsavo national park, Kenya. This acacia is a symbol of life in the vast expanses of thorny savanna, where wild animals come to take advantage of its leaves or its shade. Tsavo National Park in southeastern Kenya, crossed by the Nairobi-Mombasa road and railway axis, is the country's largest protected area (8,200 square miles, or 21,000 square kilometers) and was declared a national park in 1948. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Elephants in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. The Okavango Delta is the world's largest inland delta, flooding seasonally, and is populated by five ethnic groups of people, sharing it with hundreds of species of animals. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #