Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Fog drifts over a secluded estuary and the Thorne River on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. The main island includes hundreds of adjacent smaller islands—a total of more than 2,600 square miles with 990 miles of coastline and countless bays coves, inlets, and points.<br />
Fjords, steep-sided mountains, and dense forests characterize the island. Extensive tracts of limestone include karst features.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075048.TIF
  • Old growth forest hemlock and spruce trees stand tall beside a 100-foot waterfall on Chichagof Island. It can take a 1000 years for spruce, hemlock and Sitka cedar to grow and tower over a lush forest floor.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075069.jpg
  • Fog-shrouded mountains with evergreen forests.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760133.jpg
  • Dinka tribesmen and their cattle hide in acacia forests to escape attack by government forces. The Government of Sudan (GOS) dropped bombs nearby, wiping out an entire village and all of the livestock. Animals are a target because they are the last resource in times of famine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM6998_714580.jpg
  • Clearing fog slowly dissipates above islands and the reflective, quiet waters in Sitka Sound. Alexander Archipelago has around 1,100 islands, which are actually the tops of a submerged section of the Coast Ranges in Southeast Alaska.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075025.TIF
  • Old growth hemlock, spruce trees and a 100- foot waterfall create a wilderness refuge for a lone hiker on central Chichagof Island.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075123.TIF
  • Frosty morning snow on a canoe and trees surrounding a small lake near Mendenhall Glacier.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075064.TIF
  • A Pygmy net hunter captures a blue duiker in a net near a hunting camp deep in the Ituri Forest. A duiker is a small antelope and main source of protein for Pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Mbuti drape nets between trees and flush game toward them.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976430.TIF
  • Lush rain forest foliage of ferns and wood sorrel.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760103.jpg
  • Woodland rain forest view with mosses and ferns.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760095.jpg
  • Woodland rain forest view with mosses, ferns, and wood sorrel.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760094.jpg
  • Lush rain forest setting with ferns, mosses, wood sorrel, and trees.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760057.jpg
  • Lush rain forest setting with ferns, mosses, wood sorrel, and trees.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760052.jpg
  • Lush woodland view with mosses, epiphytes, ferns and trees.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_765252.jpg
  • Plastic buckets and truck parts are used to prospect for gold.  Small time gold prospecting creates newly carved roads destroying the northeastern Congo in the  Ituri Forest. <br />
<br />
Gold fever is contagious in northeastern Congo, where the metal finances local warlords. Rocks are smashed and washed by hand in search of yellow flecks.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972266.TIF
  • Rocks are smashed and washed by hand in search of gold flecks in an old mine tunnel left by Belgians. Miners hold flashlights to see underground when they work.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976460.TIF
  • Timber is cut into cedar shakes and lumber for building and construction creating jobs for locals at a small sawmill operation on Prince of Wales Island.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075074.jpg
  • A moss and scale fungus covered tree trunk.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760107.jpg
  • Close up detail of a fern frond and vining plant.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760097.jpg
  • Smoke and flames rise as Bureau of Land Management fire crew sets a prescribed burn in Oregon to clear land for grazing and reduce potentially flammable undergrowth. Years of fire suppression create an environment that is prone to wild fires during dry summers. Managing cattle land and wilderness ecosystems is a difficult balance. More than a billion dollars is spent annually suppressing wildfires that burn millions of acres of western land. <br />
<br />
Though fire plays an integral role in many forest and rangeland ecosystems, decades of efforts directed at extinguishing every fire that burned on public lands have disrupted the natural fire regimes that once existed. Moreover, as more communities develop and grow in areas that are adjacent to fire-prone lands in what is known as the wildland/urban interface, fires pose increasing threats to people and their property.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680965.jpg
  • Balsa-like Pisonia trees grow unmolested on the islands of Palymra.  The fiber of this tropical tree is soft like balsa wood.  The buttress trunks and tangled branches of these trees allow for Palmyra to transform itself into a spectacul ar forest nursery for tens of thousands of nesting seabirds and their young each spring.
    RANDY OLSON_MM6778_671353.JPG
  • A toast, with shots of Vodka, marks the end of the Russian Geological Society's expedition to Siberia's Putorana Plateau.   These men and women repeatedly tra vel to Siberia's Putorana Plateau to increase the world's knowledge this remote , uninhabited region.
    RANDY OLSON_06396_673224.JPG
  • Twilight view of snow-capped Olympic mountains and foothills below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760088.jpg
  • Twilight view of Olympic mountains and evergreens in snowy landscape.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760069.jpg
  • More than 5,000 miles of roads are carved into the remote landscape to clear-cut large swatches of forests on Chichagof Island. An aerial picture after a winter snow reveals the patchwork on lower reaches of the mountains where logging traditionally occurs. <br />
Taxpayer money has subsidized the timber industry since 1980. Tongass National Forest timber management has cost U.S. taxpayers roughly one billion dollars, making it the largest money loser in the entire national forest system.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1073536.TIF
  • Conservationists hike through a 600-year old uncut old growth forest of tall trees. It can take a 1000 years for spruce, hemlock and Sitka cedar to grow and tower over a lush forest floor.<br />
Tongass National Forest in Alaska's Southeast  is the world's largest remaining intact coastal temperate rain forest. Nearly 17 million acres provides habitat for the largest population of Bald Eagles in the world.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075041.jpg
  • Fog-draped forest wilderness and rugged mountains are typical in Southeast Alaska where the 17 million acre Tongass National Forest receives an average of 200 inches of precipitation a year.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075040.jpg
  • A conservation group hikes through wilderness and old growth crossing creeks and rough terrain in Tongass National Forest.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075115.TIF
  • Tourists don blue jackets and hike in the rain to Mendenhall Glacier through the Tongass National Forest. The region earns its reputation for receiving up to 200 inches of rain a year creating a lush, green and moss-covered environment.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075044.TIF
  • Shredded tree trunks stand on the edge of a clear cut forest near Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island. This is the waste that is left behind that small mills sort through and find usable lumber. As one mill owner said of this opportunity, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1073539.TIF
  • Cody, a timber faller, works alone in the woods at Winter Harbor on Prince of Wales Island. It’s dangerous work, and fallers listen for others’ saws between cuts to make sure a buddy isn't injured. Following his father’s example, Cody wanted to be a timber faller since he was a kid. He got his first chain saw when he was nine and has been working since he turned seventeen.<br />
  He leaves home at 5 a.m. driving an hour to the work site. Carrying a heavy chain saw, he walks with the grace of a ballet dancer on a maze of fallen trees. His shoes, called corks that cost as much as $750, have metal-spiked soles so he is stable on fallen trees.<br />
  Loggers and fishermen rank in the top two spots for most dangerous jobs. Both are common lines of work for people in the Alaskan outdoors. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking fatal occupational injuries in 1980, there were 4,547 fatal work injuries in 2010, and fatality rates of some occupations remain alarmingly high.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075117.TIF
  • Fog shrouds steep cliffs on the forested hillsides of Mount Juneau in the Tongass National Forest. Sitka Spruce and Hemlock thrive in the wet environment that receives over 200 inches of rain a year.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075070.TIF
  • Mbuti Pygmies at a forest hunting camp in the Ituri forest. The future for indigenous tribes is threatened by logging, mining and urbanization moving into the forest.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976412_2.TIF
  • Artisanal logging by Bantus creates holes in the Ituri Forest which leads to mining and the end result of more villages which erode the forest.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972265.TIF
  • A logging camp in the Ituri Forest where the trunk is suspended on a platform and the huge squared-off trunk is cut into nine equal segments. The mud houses are supported by solid mahogany 3 X 3’s that are 15 feet long and cost 1 dollar.
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  • A Mbuti Pygmy spear projecting into a rain forest scene. Spears are used for hunting in a  dense bush and forest habitat.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_1001226.JPG
  • Mbuti Pygmies at a forest hunting camp. They are semi-nomadic and build nighttime shelters for sleeping.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976414.TIF
  • Mbuti Pygmies at a forest hunting camp pass time together. They move with supplies and build other camps as they hunt for food.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976412.TIF
  • A family hunts for ginseng in a West Virginia forest. A native plant in the Appalachian forest, ginseng is highly prized and harvested as a cash crop. It has been used for centuries in North America and Asia for a variety of illnesses and to increase vitality.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996256.jpg
  • Scientists climb on gigantic stumps of trees cut years ago while they hiking through surveying what is left of the old growth forest. Tongass National Forest encompasses 16.8 million acres and is the largest temperate rain forest on the planet. The 600 to 800 year old trees lin these forests forests contribute irreplaceable biological diversity.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1073538.jpg
  • A timber faller works alone with a chain saw in the forest cutting trees one by one at Winter Harbor on Prince of Wales Island. It is dangerous work.<br />
 The forests in the Tongass can take a 1000 years for spruce, hemlock and Sitka cedar to grow and tower over a lush forest floor in Alaska's Southeast.<br />
Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass is composed of high-volume old growth. The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075148.jpg
  • Pygmies chop down the forest they need for their own survival. As Bantus move into this area and search for gold or other resources, these cancerous settlements in the forest grow and grow and eventually the Pygmies don't have the healthy forest they need to survive.
    MM7029_019789.tif
  • Robert Cowart wipes sweat away after felling a pine on White Oak Plantation. Pine forests are common in the southeastern Coastal Plain and Florida. Many forests are managed for timber production as pulp used for paper products can come from a wide variety of tree species including conifers. <br />
<br />
The vast majority of Florida’s over 17 million acres of forested land are comprised of pines or a combination of pines and hardwoods. Pine flatwoods are typically found on poorly drained, sandy soils intermediate in moisture content between wetter bottomlands and drier uplands. Overstory of these woodlands consists mainly of longleaf, slash, and loblolly pines, although pond pine and shortleaf pine do occur. The shrub layer of flatwoods forests often includes blackberry, dwarf huckleberry, fetterbush, gallberry, saw palmetto, and wax myrtle.
    MELISSA FARLOW_05842_470848.JPG
  • Shredded remains of trees on the edge of a forest that was clear cut on Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest. At nearly 17 million acres, the Tongass rainforest is composed of considerable stands of old-growth forest, with some trees standing more than 800 years old. <br />
Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass is composed of high-volume old growth.<br />
The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075108.jpg
  • Shredded remains of trees are the spoils left after a forest is clear cut on Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest. At nearly 17 million acres, the Tongass rainforest is composed of considerable stands of old-growth forest, with some trees more than 800 years old.<br />
Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass is composed of high-volume old growth.<br />
The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075083.jpg
  • A Pygmy chops down forest for a garden.
    MM7029_008568.tif
  • Logging roads zig zag through a recent clear cut forest creating a barren slope on Admiralty Island. Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass National Forest is composed of high-volume old growth. The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075047.jpg
  • Wilderness islands off Prince of Wales Island at the Dixon Entrance of the Inside Passage.<br />
Tongass National Forest covers 16.7 million acres stretching over mountains, bays, glaciers, 1,000 islands, 18,000 miles of coastline, and almost all of mainland Southeast Alaska. Approximately 94% of Southeast Alaska is federally managed lands, and of that, 60% is set aside as Congressionally-designated Wilderness, National Parks, and National Monuments.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075088.jpg
  • Fog slowly lifts in the valley following a morning snow in Juneau near the Mendenhall Glacier and surrounding mountain peaks in the Tongass National Forest.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075063.TIF
  • A timber faller works alone in the woods at Winter Harbor. It is dangerous work and cuts are calculated so a tree will fall cleanly to prevent injuries.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075147.jpg
  • A timber faller works alone in the woods at Winter Harbor on Prince of Wales Island. He turns off his chain saw occasionally to listen for others working on nearby hillsides. It is a way the men look out for each other's safety.<br />
Loggers and fishermen rank in the top two spots for most dangerous jobs. Both are common lines of work for people in the Alaskan outdoors. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking fatal occupational injuries in 1980, there were 4,547 fatal work injuries in 2010, and fatality rates of some occupations remain alarmingly high.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075146.TIF
  • Cross country skier glides along side his dog as snow falls on frozen Mendenhall Lake surrounded by trees at the base of the glacier in Alaska's Southeast.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075065.jpg
  • The Taku River flows out of the Coastal Range in British Columbia to 100 miles northeast of Juneau, Alaska. <br />
A world-class wilderness, the Taku River watershed contains some of the richest wildlife habitat in North America and is teeming with grizzlies, wolves, Stone’s sheep, moose, woodland caribou, migratory birds, and abundant populations of salmon.  The Taku is southeast Alaska’s top salmon-producing river with nearly 2 million wild salmon returning to the river annually.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075085.TIF
  • A Pygmy woman hauls a piece of mahogony from the Ituri Forest.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976462.TIF
  • Mbuti Pygmy boys learn to fish and other survival skills at their hunting camp in the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<br />
<br />
Boys go through the circumcision ceremony called nKumbi. They are whipped every morning to make them tough, and then they sent off into the forest to hunt or fish. The boys pull a small hook out of their skirts and get a vine and a stick—they know where to dig for worms.  They catch five or six 2inch long fish and eat them raw for lunch.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976419.TIF
  • Though blind, an Mbute boy endures rites of manhood alongside peers. He learns survival skills in the forest and takes part in all the rituals over a five month period until the group is initiated and boys become men. When the boys run along the trails he does also, with his hands on the back of the boy in front of him. All boys are whipped each morning which is believed to help make them tough to survive in the Ituri Forest. <br />
<br />
Pygmies are semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who rely on a healthy forest for their livelihood.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972252.TIF
  • Mbuti Pygmy families at a hunting camp build a fire for cooking the Ituri forest.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976428.JPG
  • Mbuti Pygmies at a forest hunting camp where people gather to flush out duikers into their nets.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976427.JPG
  • Mbuti boys endure whippings during a puberty ritual.<br />
<br />
After several months in the Ituri Forest, Pygmy boys learn skills to survive on their own. They hunt, fish and learn to read the forest. On the last day of the nKumbi, whipping is more severe and includes a ceremony where the boys are secluded within a phalanx of men. They are met halfway thru the village with women carrying whips and a melee ensues–the intent is to control the destiny of the child. <br />
<br />
The women want the boy to stay a boy and the men want the boy to be acknowledged as a man.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972260.TIF
  • Pygmy Boys in a nKumbi Manhood Ritual wear a leaf mouthpiece to keep them silent. Forest Pygmies near Epulu, Democratic Republic of Congo are indigenous, semi-nomadic, hunter-gatherers in the rainforest of the Congo Basin. The BaMbuti Pygmies perform a  nKumbi or initiation that lasts five months where the boys live at a camp in the forest and daily learn survival skills.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972262.TIF
  • A logging company hires Pygmies to cut down their own forest. There are few registered logging concessions in the Ituri.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976437.TIF
  • Gold mining in northeastern Congo. Quarantesept and Cinqante are gold mining towns near Ituri forest reserve in DR Congo. Hundreds of people from Congo and Uganda come to work at the mines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976478.TIF
  • The Okapi is a mammal with distinct striped markings that stands less than five feet tall. The herbivore feeds on tree leaves, grasses and ferns and never developed the long neck of a savannah giraffe since all its’ food is low.<br />
<br />
 Okapi are solitary animals whose dark bodies blend into the shadows and stripes break up an animal outline making it difficult for predators to see them. Major threats to this solitary forest creature include habitat loss due to logging, mining and hunting. Classified as endangered,  The Okapi Conservation Project was established in 1987 to protect the species. THE Okapi Wildlife Reserve is a World Heritage site that covers around 20 percent of the Ituri Rainforest.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972267.TIF
  • Mbuti Pygmy tribesmen in the rain forest with freshly killed duikers which are an important part of their diet.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_1001236.TIF
  • A Pygmy girl does chores for a wealthy Bantu family in Beni. <br />
<br />
This is the daughter of Kenge-known because of a book, "The Forest People." Kenge is possibly the most famous pygmy.  His daughter was traded off to a wealthy Bantu family when the father had a good job with GIC and his wife needed help with the kids.  During the war, the family moved to Beni, because it was a little more secure than Epulu. They brought their pygmy with them.  She does various chores around the house-laundry, sweeping, mopping, washing children.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976475.TIF
  • Pygmies bend branches to create shelter at hunting camps. The semi-nomadic tribal boys are going through the circumcision ceremony called nKumbi are accompanied the adults to the camp.  They have their own structure and are sent off into the forest to hunt or fish.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976425.TIF
  • Pygmies bend branches to create shelter at hunting camps. The semi-nomadic tribe moves through the forest to find a good site and create a place to congregate.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976421.JPG
  • An okapi forages in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve is a World Heritage site that covers around 20 percent of the Ituri Rainforest. <br />
The Okapi is a mammal with distinct striped markings that stands less than five feet tall. It is an herbivore that feeds on tree leaves, grasses and ferns that never developed the long neck of a savannah giraffe since all its’ food is low. <br />
<br />
Okapi are solitary animals whose dark bodies blend into the shadows and stripes break up an animal outline making it difficult for predators to see them. Major threats to this solitary forest creature include habitat loss due to logging, mining and hunting. Classified as endangered,  The Okapi Conservation Project was established in 1987 to protect the species. T
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976410.TIF
  • The thin whisper of skirts dissolves into the Ituri rain forest as boys trail their elders on their way to a hunting camp. The Mbyte are one of several Pygmy groups still following semi-Nomadic traditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Part of the nKumbi manhood ritual involves young Pygmy boys learning survival skills. They walk single file on a path to meet net hunters wearing grass skirts while they train for five months before their initiation into manhood. At that time, they will be on on their own and will share adult responsibilities and feed their families.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972253.TIF
  • Mbuti boys sit on a log in the Ituri forest and endure rites of manhood alongside their peers.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976445.JPG
  • Pygmy boys dance wear leaves on their mouths for silence as they go through a manhood initiation called nKumbi.  They wear ceremonial skirts for their circumcision ceremonies, and when the ritual is completed, the skirts will hang in the trees at the entrance to their village in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<br />
<br />
Pygmies are nomadic hunter-gatherers who rely on a healthy forest to survive. They have no claim to their own home territory, however, because the colonial Belgians assigned land rights only to sedentary groups
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972605.TIF
  • Mbuti women assemble shelter walls using mongongo leaves in double leaf construction. They make  a leaf-hut more impervious to rain.  Shelters are built six feet high in a beehive-shaped frame of sticks. The forest hunting camps are about 10k apart, and 10K from where they string their nets to hunt in DR Congo.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972258.TIF
  • The Mbuti ferry the portable details of their lives from camp to camp. The semi-nomadic tribe hunts and gathers in the Ituri Forest to survive.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972257.JPG
  • The sound of pipes fills an Mbuti camp as men play by the fireside hunting camp in the Ituri forest in DR Congo. <br />
<br />
Pygmies stay up late telling hunting stories and act out the animals. The semi-nomadic tribe sets up nets to hunt small antelope called duikers.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972255.TIF
  • Mbuti boys wear grass skirts and leaf mouthpieces to stay silent during their circumcision ceremony. Pgymies are of the Congo's few remaining traditional tribes in the rainforests of the world. They are threatened by logging companies and growing modern culture.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976417.TIF
  • Hunters scale trees with makeshift smoker baskets in pursuit of honey. One Pygmy spots bees swarming and climbs 60 feet up in the air making a long rope and basket out of vines and leaves. He carries a smoldering log to drive the bees from the hive before collecting the honey.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972259.TIF
  • Villagers in the war-weary Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo scrape for gold in a shaft dug decades ago by a Belgian company. Armed groups controlled Ituri’s rich mines, using gold to buy weapons. Hundreds of people from Congo and Uganda come to work at the mines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976458.TIF
  • Gold mining near the town of Quarantesept in northeastern Congo. Hundreds of people from Congo and Uganda come to work at the mines.<br />
<br />
Villagers in the war-weary Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo scrape for gold in a shaft dug decades ago by a Belgian company. Until recently, armed groups controlled Ituri’s rich mines, using gold to buy weapons.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976457.TIF
  • Mbuti boys endure whippings during a puberty ritual ending the manhood ceremony.<br />
Women carry whips to meet the men halfway through the village, and a melee ensures where they beat each other. Women try to control the destiny the child but the men traditionally win, and each boy is paraded through the village for the scarification ritual.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976451.TIF
  • A Pygmy church choir is led by a Bantu tribesman.<br />
<br />
Pygmies have no land rights.  The colonizing Belgians assigned land rights to residing ethnic groups and this still holds. Because Pygmies are nomadic and had no chiefs, they did not receive land rights.  Pygmies are at the bottom of the social caste system—they have no power.  Strong ethnic groups still have strong land rights.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976440.TIF
  • A Pygmy choir sings and dances and is led by a Bantu tribesman at a Pentecost church in Epulu.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976439.JPG
  • Pygmies daub each other with clay to decorate their faces and beautify their bodies.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976422.TIF
  • Clouds gather at the base of Kaieteur Falls as seen from this elevated view in the rain forest.
    RANDY OLSON_MM6570_704406.JPG
  • Moss covered tree in a lush green rain forest setting.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760101.jpg
  • A Mbuti boy endures a ritual scarification by razor blade. It is the last of the manhood ceremony that follows months of training to learn skills and live independently.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976452.TIF
  • Bantu tribespeople living a more urban existence in permanently build homes decorated with more modern items and wear western-style clothing.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976443.TIF
  • Moss covered trees in a lush green rain forest setting.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_760105.jpg
  • A Pygmy woman mops the floor and does a multitude of chores for a wealthy family in Beni.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976476.TIF
  • Pygmies travel the dusty trans-African highway in Epulu carrying supplies and family members too small to walk.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976411.TIF
  • A couple watches competitors and wait for their turn to use the "misery whip, " a two person cutting saw that typically has a 4-12 foot blade and was used to fell tall Sitka spruce, hemlock and cedar trees in the region's logging heyday. Competition is fierce as loggers are timed to see who can cut through a log the fastest. The logging show on Prince of Wales island is not a tourist event, but a chance for locals to come together and show off their skills.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1073530.TIF
  • The lush forest engulfs Sams River Loop Trail.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_754676.jpg
  • Sawdust covers a worker’s boots at a salvage mill on Goose Creek on Prince of Wales Island. Although the timber industry has declined in southeast Alaska, the family operation makes red cedar shakes and cuts boards from salvage after a company is done clear cutting trees.<br />
The small company’s work is considered “value–added,” and is acknowledged as the best way to get the most dollars out of each board foot of timber harvested and processed locally.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075076.TIF
  • A woman worker sorts lumber after logs are milled. Few industrial pulp mills remain open since the commercial timber industry fell on hard times. But small family operations like this one continue milling wood for products and local use rather than export.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075053.jpg
  • The Logger of the Year winner hugs his girlfriend in red boots to celebrate after he won in the annual logging show held in Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island. The Southeast Alaskan competition is the “real thing”—not a tourist show—where loggers, former loggers, and “wannabe” loggers compete, climbing trees and sawing timber.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075020.TIF
  • Hatchet in hand, a man steadies his grasp on the handle during a target competition-one of many challenges at a traditional logging show. The Southeast Alaska region's roots are deep in the heyday of a vibrant logging industry when locals come together for fun competing with saws and hatchets, pole climbing and wheel barrow races.
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  • Jugs of water are bailed out from a skiff during games and competition at a logging show. The communities surrounding Thorne Bay come together for the summer event on Prince of Wales Island.
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  • Snow dusted a sequoia tree located in the southern portion of Yosemite National Park. The Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias is the largest sequoia grove in Yosemite and is home to over 500 mature giant sequoias. The national park idea is rooted in the Mariposa Grove. In 1864 President Lincoln signed legislation protecting the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley for "public use, resort, and recreation." This landmark legislation holds an important place in our country's history and was enacted at a time when the nation was embroiled in the Civil War. For the first time in U.S. history, the federal government set aside scenic natural areas to be protected for the benefit of future generations. Later added to Yosemite National Park in 1906, the Mariposa Grove is a popular feature for visitors.
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  • A truck driver unties rope holding his cargo he hauled on a logging truck. Pine forests are cut for pulp wood and processed at paper mills. Timber harvesting is a lucrative business in southeast U.S.
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  • A logger takes a coffee break near a campfire  while cutting trees in a snow-dusted forest near Lake Bled.
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  • Sunlight beaming through a forest of evergreen trees.
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