Celia Furt, The State Of Our Planet (PLACES WILDERNESS)

'The State Of Our Planet', it's burning, it's dying and it's living.All three at the same time. As I travelled around Mallacoota, I was directly confronted with the devastation caused by the 2019-2020 bushfires in East Gippsland, Victoria. The cadavers of the burnt trees overlooking that halcyon beach greatly diminish the effect of "Oh I'm in paradise'. During these bushfires, 1.1 million hectares of land were burnt in East Gippsland. 170 rare or threatened species have lost more than 50% of their habitat. Whether I was on that beach or on the Princess Highway driving to Mallacoota, I felt it. Silence. No birds, no kangaroos, no magpies, no eagles, no nothing... It was eery and blood stopping. Some time ago, in the Northern Hemisphere, fires were raging in Turkey, Greece (Athens), California (USA) with the worst still happening in the Amazon forest and the Arctic warming up 3 x as fast as forecasted. So yes, our planet is burning, dying and living all at the same time. Yet, our planet is still so beautiful!

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.