Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Aerial photo shows rows of identical houses in Huaxi Village, once known as the richest village in China. It is emblematic of the beginning of the massive urbanization of China and the largest human migration in history from the rural areas into the cities. <br />
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It was a honored as a model of socialist economy. Established in 1961, collective investment efforts boomed in 1998 launching steel, iron and textile industries that by 2003, profited over USD 1.2 billion. One third of the profits come from the steel industry. In recent years, the company has shown it's first-ever loss. <br />
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Workers didn't migrate away because their model rural farm, instead, changed into a modern industrial city. The former Farmer’s Village has free health care and education, identical villas with red tile roofs, landscaped lawns and two car garages but there is no entertainment, and residents cannot move and take their wealth with them.<br />
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When they first started factories, they worked in secret with no windows. When government officials came to inspect, they sent all the workers out to the fields and disguised the factories.
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  • These older buildings will soon disappear because the property is just too valuable to leave them. In some years, the government cooled the housing market by imposing a 20 percent resale tax. A model can be viewed to see what this block will look like in the future. It is displayed at the City Planning Museum near People’s Square in the Puxi side of Shanghai. The 3D model shows not only the buildings that are already done, but also those planned for the future when these buildings are all torn down.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176420.jpg
  • Sunset and shadows fall across a building in Lowry Pueblo, an archeological site located in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument. A treasure of Ansazi Indian ruins in Colorado, the pueblo was constructed around 1060 AD atop abandoned pit houses from an earlier period of occupation. A total of 40 rooms and 8 kivas at its peak in the early 11th century, it was home to approximately 100 people. The 176,000 acre monument of federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management includes 20,000 archeological sites.
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  • Rows of identical two-story villas with tile roofs, manicured lawns and two-car garages show an extraordinary period of development in China. Huaxi Village, seen from the air, was referred to as the "richest village in China." Known for its economic prosperity, it was once honored as a model of socialist economy.<br />
<br />
Huaxi was an agrarian hovel, reachable by dirt roads. Its success is due to one man Wu Renbao, a farmer and village patriarch who got his start in the early days of the Deng reforms by setting up a factory in to make fertilizer spray bottles. As years passed, Wu started factories, and farmers worked in them secretly since they had no windows. When government officials inspected, workers ran out into the fields and pretended to be peasants. They became the first and most successful capitalist exploitation of the collective. <br />
<br />
Farmers Village, founded in 1961, has run a multi-sector industry company that by the early 21st century included over 80 companies. Huaxi Group's iron and steel and non-ferrous metals are the largest source of income, but it also oversees tobacco, textile and real estate and other companies. By 2004, the per capita annual salary of Huaxi villagers reached nearly 42 times the per capita income of farmers in the country. After 2008, Huaxi’s steel industry declined and in 2021, Huaxi Village went into bankruptcy. The villages hopes tourism will be the next booming industry.<br />
<br />
In a throwback to Mao's days, all residents receive free health care, education and pensions-something many other Chinese have lost in the transition to capitalism. It is set up as a working village where everyone works seven days a week and there is little entertainment like bars, internet cafes and has strict social guidelines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176514.jpg
  • Pre-Columbian reliefs in stone at the Sechin ruins near Casma dating 1600 B.C.<br />
They are well-preserved among the Peru's coastal ruins. Three outside walls of the main temple are covered with relief carvings of warriors and of captives being eviscerated.  The gruesomely realistic stone carvings are up to four meters high.  Little is known about the warlike people who are responsible which is one of the site's main points of interest.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187643.jpg
  • An ancient Moai statue stands silently under the stars and night sky on Easter Island, the most remote inhabited island in the world. <br />
Monolithic figures were carved by the Rapa Nui people between approximately 1250 and 1700 A.D.. Many of the more than 900 statues are still at a quarry and some are lie along the roads. But hundreds of the 33 foot high moai weighing more than 80 tons  of volcanic tuff were transported and set on stone platforms around the island's perimeter. <br />
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It is believed that the statues may have "walked" to their destinations by workers using ropes to rock them side to side although some archaeologists disagree thinking they may have been rolled on logs although the island is now treeless.<br />
<br />
The nearest population center is Chile (2300 miles) and the nearest Polynesian center in the opposite direction is Tahiti (2600 miles). Easter Island, (Rapa Nui, Isla de Pascua) is famous for Moai, tall statues carved out of rock that stand guard
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  • A moai statue at Ahu Akahanga sleeps under a starry night.<br />
According to tradition, the remains of Hotu Matu’a, the founding ancestor of the Rapa Nui people, are placed here at Ahu Akahanga.
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  • Flags and statuary decorate a colorful roadside altar in a desolate region of northern Chile. Shrines or  animitas are a common tradition of memorials that mark the site where someone died. People who are not related to the person who was killed can offer a prayer at the animita; in this way, animitas can take the roles of popular saints in the Catholic religion.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187656.jpg
  • Pre-Columbian reliefs in stone at the Sechin ruins near Casma dating 1600 B.C.<br />
They are well-preserved among the Peru's coastal ruins. Three outside walls of the main temple are covered with relief carvings of warriors and of captives being eviscerated. The gruesomely realistic stone carvings are up to four meters high. Little is known about the warlike people who are responsible which is one of the site's main points of interest.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187646.jpg
  • Parched and windswept, a cactus stands at the top of Cerro la Raya and the overlook of the ancient city of Túcume in northern Peru. A significant Inca shrine, Túcume actually predates the Inca, its mud-brick pre columbian architectural ruins constructed some 900 years ago. At least 28 pyramids, plazas and crumbling walls made up the ceremonial center of the Lambayeque people (1000-1400 AD).
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187494.jpg
  • In Dhaka, Bangladesh, this slough of plastic trash is next to a huge recycling center. One of the main drivers of plastic waste in the ocean is the overburden that blows into watersheds in countries that have over 80% of unmanaged plastic waste. Plastic waste and global warming are companion threats. People’s need for clean drinking water increases as temperatures rise. The size of this center in Dhaka is equivalent to three football fields. In the winter when I made this photograph, only one of the football fields was filled with plastic waste. In the summer when everyone drinks more bottled water because of the excessive heat in a Bangladesh summer, all three football fields are filled with plastic waste. The slough next to this informal factory is filled with the overburden that is either shoved away or is blown by the wind into the neighboring watershed.
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  • The last thing many migrating salmon see is this: the claws of a massive paw. Brown bears stun their targets with club-like blows, then gobble up their catch. This underwater shot of a brown bear was made at what is known as a Grizzly in Kurilskoe Lake Preserve, a World Heritage Site. A remote location, one must charter an MI-8 helicopter for a two-hour ride each way, so there aren’t many people to bother these bears. Once they memorize your scent they may come very close, and at times I saw 17 bears in the view shed.<br />
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Brown bears in Kamchatka can be 7 to 9 feet in length and weigh 700-800 pounds. Species: U. arctic Genus:Ursus<br />
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Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.
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  • The Ozernaya River is full of spawning pink salmon— the most abundant—coming in from the left side of the frame, and sockeye—the most valuable—just below them.<br />
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The Kamchatka Shelf in Russia is the last safe place for salmon and the only place on Earth with seven species of oncorhynchus (derived from Greek words meaning hook nose). These photographs illustrate a story about fish that were left alone for millions of years but are now threatened.  <br />
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Along the entire Pacific Rim, salmon production is down to 3 or 4 percent of historic production. Salmon transform from silver missiles in the ocean to brightly colored creatures as they make their way back up their ancestral rivers, and during spawning adult males develop a hooked nose. They stop eating, so it doesn’t matter that their mouths no longer work for food.  The photo in the Ozernaya River, above, shows
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  • A bachelor band of horses group together for protection and company while grazing in the high desert of Steens Mountain in Oregon. Males in a herd form a family when they are young or old but have no mares.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7517_1222866.jpg
  • Palomino Valley houses wild horses captured on public lands that are processed and prepared for adoption. A Bureau of Land Management facility in Nevada, mustangs trucked there are fed hay, vaccinated, given a freeze-mark brand and placed in corrals where they wait to be adopted or moved to another facility making room for more captured horses. There is little to no shelter from the sun in the barren facility.
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  • Protected wild horses come to a water hole drinking in order of dominance in the herd. Ears perked forward, the curious mustang shows no fear.
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  • Strong winds blow rain from a storm cloud that violently erupts with loud claps of thunder that sends a band of horses running for safety. The young foal runs behind, following her mother and another mare.<br />
The wild horse herd nervously watched as a storm approached in central South Dakota. When lightning and thunder began, they galloped to a far away fence where they could go no further. The "fight or flight" instinct of behavior is powerful and horses often panic and flee when they sense danger.
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  • Twilight scene from above snow-covered New York's Central Park. An elevated view shows a curved road planned by Frederick Law Olmsted to create a greater sense of space and mystery about what was to come around the next bend.<br />
Olmsted partnered with Calvert Vaux to plan “Greensward,” and won a design competition to make the what became a beloved urban park. When the idea was conceived, New York was much smaller and no one could imagine the open space surrounded by a city with tall buildings. Olmsted was a visionary and understood that man needed nature to combat the stresses of city life.  Construction began in 1858  and was completed fifteen years later. Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963 and is now managed by Central Park Conservancy, a nonprofit which contributes eighty five percent of the park’s $37.5 budget. More than thirty-five million visitors to Manhattan come to the park annually.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968596.jpg
  • Spawning salmon in the Ozernaya River.<br />
The Kamchatka Shelf in Russia is the last safe place for salmon and the only place on Earth with seven species of oncorhynchus (derived from Greek words meaning hook nose). These photographs illustrate a story about fish that were left alone for millions of years but are now threatened.  Along the entire Pacific Rim, salmon production is down to 3 or 4 percent of historic production. Salmon transform from silver missiles in the ocean to brightly colored creatures as they make their way back up their ancestral rivers, and during spawning adult males develop a hooked nose. They stop eating, so it doesn’t matter that their mouths no longer work for food.  The photo in the Ozernaya River, above, shows pink salmon— the most abundant—coming in from the left side of the frame, and sockeye—the most valuable—just below them.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248219.JPG
  • Haul trucks carry rock waste at Batu Hijau, an open pit copper and gold mine. The second largest mine in Indonesia has a tropical monsoonal climate with high rainfall, and an extended arid season with almost no rainfall. Other environmental considerations include significant seismic activity, with the associated risk of tsunamis, and acid rock drainage, not to mention the existence on site of an endangered species, the yellow-crested cockatoo.
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  • Ahu Akahanga – This small Moai in the blue light of late evening shows the early style for crafting Moais – he has really big eyes – shorter proportions - and it may have been associated with the Ahu behind it at this place over the ocean.  This area on the south coast had a higher population density and had more Moai.  The early statues were more variable in form… later they started to look more alike.<br />
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Easter Island is the most remote inhabited island in the world.  The nearest population center is Chile (2300 miles) and the nearest Polynesian center in the opposite direction is Tahiti (2600 miles).  Easter Island, (Rapa Nui, Isla de Pascua) is famous for Moai everywhere along the coast toppled on their Ahu’s and littered abandoned in the center along the Moai roads used to transport them.  Polynesians had a knack for colonizing even the most inhospitable oceanic rock.  They were adept sailors, explorers, colonizers and their experience taught them the best way to escape war or famine was to sail east, to windward in search of new islands.  There is no evidence that a 2nd group reached the island in early history as Heyerdall alledges – in fact it points to the opposite.  Easter Island had military rule until 1965 and had cashless societies of fishing and farming that have since been broken apart by independence and a dependence on tourism.  Rapanui incest laws are strict with everybody tracing roots to 30 or so couples who survived 19th century Peruvian slave raiding and epidemics.
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  • Animal figures as well as geometric shapes are part of the mysterious Nazca lines best seen from the air in the Peruvian desert.  The figures--as well as triangles, rectangles and straight lines--run for several kilometers across the dry barren land. The desert floor is covered in a layer of iron oxide-coated pebbles of a deep rust color. The ancient peoples created their designs by removing the top 12 to 15 inches of rock, revealing the lighter-colored sand below. Anthropologists believe the Nazca culture that created them began around 100 B.C. and flourished from A.D. 1 to 700
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187622.jpg
  • Mysterious Nazca lines form animal and geometric figures seen from the air.  A hummingbird shape as well as perfect geometric designs like triangles, rectangles and straight lines run for several kilometers across the desert. The desert floor is covered in a layer of iron oxide-coated pebbles of a deep rust color. Anthropologists believe the Nazca culture that created them began around 100 B.C. and flourished from A.D. 1 to 700. The ancient peoples created their designs by removing the top 12 to 15 inches of rock, revealing the lighter-colored sand below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187620.jpg
  • A statue of Mao Tse Tung towers above a smoke stack at the gate to Wuhan's Iron and Steel plant.
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  • Shanghai at night where buildings are light and boats glide on the water near new construction along the Dong Da Ming Road.
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  • New construction along the Dong Da Ming Road with skyscrapers of Shanghai in the background.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176333-1.jpg
  • Cloudy skies create a gray cast on Shanghai's skyline and new construction along the Dong Da Ming Road.
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  • Shanghai's modern skyline is lit at night and viewed from a window in a restaurant near new construction along the Dong Da Ming Road.
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  • Lights come on at dusk in some spaces in high rise apartment buildings in the Bund.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176386.JPG
  • Shadows fall across Painted Hand Pueblo, a tower in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, a treasure of Ansazi Indian ruins in Colorado. The 176,000 acres of federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management includes 20,000 archeological sites.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680975.jpg
  • Red and yellow flags decorate a colorful gold jewelry store in Bangalore.
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  • Land yachts race the wind and each other across the Alvord Desert playa’s flat, dusty terrain. Fans of the sport flock to the ancient lake bed in search of speeds beyond most posted interstate highway limits. The world record stands above 116 mph. Sports enthusiasts race in high temperatures when the playa is dry enough to drive on.<br />
The desert lies to the east of Oregon's Steens Mountain, and Steen's Mountain Wilderness which is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  It abruptly falls to the dry Alvord Desert 6,000 feet below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-58.JPG
  • The arid plateau north of the Grand Canyon is viewed from Navajo sandstone rocks of Coyote Buttes. From a 3,000-foot-high escarpment to a canyon 2,500 feet deep, Arizona's Vermillion Cliffs National Monument encloses a host of geological wonders.
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  • Wildebeests and wattled starlings begin their migration on the Serengeti in Tanzania.
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  • A young girl looks over the view from her apartment as the sun sets into clouds on an upper floor over the city of Shenzhen.
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  • View of Shenzhen from the upper floor of an apartment in the city.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176463-7.jpg
  • An American alligator suns in the shallow, tannin-rich waters of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia. The mahogany-red hue of the water which, when reflective looks like black coffee, is caused by the acid released from decaying vegetation.<br />
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An adult alligator can reach 8–12 feet in length and weigh 400 to 500 pounds. The primitive reptile was nearly hunted to extinction for sport and for its leathery hide, which is used for shoes and purses.The Okefenokee is home to an estimated 10,000-13,000 American Alligators.<br />
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Established in 1937, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge protects the waters, wilderness, and wildlife of the 402,000-acre Okefenokee Swamp.
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  • A glassy-eyed alligator that is blind in one eye glides through reflective waters of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia. This gator, frequently seen in the Suwanee Canal, is thought to have been injured during a fight with another alligator. <br />
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The once endangered species hunts in the darkness of night. An adult alligator can live 30 to 35 years in the wild, growing 8–12 feet long and weighing from 500 to 1,000 pounds.
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  • A submerged alligator is only visible with his armored back poking above placid waters as he  hunts on the muddy bottom of the Okefenokee Swamp. The reptiles skin has embedded bony plates called osteoderms or scutes.<br />
Alligator populations are considered to have recovered from overharvesting pressures through supplemental farming practices and protections placed on wild animals. However, the species is still federally listed as threatened because it looks like the American crocodile, which is endangered.
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  • Blazing sunset leaves in shadow the famous gap in Kiger Gorge, atop Oregon's Steens Mountain. Steen's Mountain Wilderness is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  The aerial view shows a forty mile long escarpment in southeastern Oregon has a notch cut out of the top and drops abruptly to the dry Alvord Desert, 5,500 feet below.<br />
Bulldozing down to basalt, Ice Age glaciers carved our huge gorges out of the Great Basin's largest fault block mountain. Beyond, Steens's east face plummets a vertical mile.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-56.JPG
  • Fog rises from the base of the Straight Cliffs that rise up to the Kaiparowits Plateau in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The protected Bureau of Land Management monument spans across nearly 1.87 million acres of public land from the cliffs and terraces to geologic treasures of slot canyons, natural bridges and arches. It’s remote location and rugged landscape make it an extraordinary unspoiled natural area valued by biologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians and those who love quiet creation and solitude. Grand Staircase was named the first national monument in 1996.
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  • Fog rises from the base of the Straight Cliffs that rise up to the Kaiparowits Plateau in an aerial view of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The protected Bureau of Land Management monument spans across nearly 1.87 million acres of public land from the cliffs and terraces to geologic treasures of slot canyons, natural bridges and arches. It’s remote location and rugged landscape make it an extraordinary unspoiled natural area valued by biologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians and those who love quiet creation and solitude. Grand Staircase was named the first national monument in 1996.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-43.JPG
  • The Paria Rivers snakes through the sandstone landscape north of the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. Narrow slot canyons form along it from the waters that originate in the north side of the 112,500-acre Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area at the Utah/Arizona border. The aerial view helps explain erosion through geologic time.
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  • Crossbeds of Navajo sandstone paint the Coyote Buttes in hues created by the precipitation of oxides. From a 3,000-foot-high escarpment to a canyon 2,500 feet deep, Arizona's Vermillion Cliffs National Monument encloses a host of geological wonders.<br />
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The 280,000 acre wildness area is federally protected and a permit is required to reduce impact on the geological treasure.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-40.JPG
  • Shadows and sun sets on the arid plateau and rock face creating stunning colors of the Vermillion Cliffs.  From a 3,000-foot-high escarpment to a canyon 2,500 feet deep, Arizona's Vermillion Cliffs National Monument encloses a host of geological wonders.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-35.JPG
  • Invasive grass lines the shoreline near a wooden dock.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6842_964823.jpg
  • Rain that never hits the ground, virga of low-lying clouds paints a dramatic sky above Steens Mountains, a 30-mile long massif in southern Oregon. Tail lights cresting a hill are barely visible on a single lane road shared by ranchers, miners, and recreational users.
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  • Aerial view of the Hackensack River.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06460_671043.jpg
  • The Merced River tumbles over its rocky bed well-known for its swift and steep course through the southern part of Yosemite National Park, where it is the primary watercourse flowing through Yosemite Valley.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06103_495941.jpg
  • Wildebeests and wattled starlings begin their migration.
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  • View of Shenzhen from the upper floor of an apartment in the city.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176463-72.jpg
  • Street scene of Beijing, China at dusk with lines of traffic in the road.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7493_1176463-10.jpg
  • An American alligator hunts at night in the shallow, tannin-rich waters of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia. The mahogany-red hue of the water which, when reflective looks like black coffee, is caused by acid released from decaying vegetation.<br />
<br />
An adult alligator can reach 8–12 feet in length and weigh 400 to 500 pounds. The primitive reptile was nearly hunted to extinction for sport and for its leathery hide, which is used for shoes and purses.The Okefenokee is home to an estimated 10,000-13,000 American Alligators.<br />
<br />
Established in 1937, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge protects the waters, wilderness, and wildlife of the 402,000-acre Okefenokee Swamp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_05842_110250-6.JPG
  • A young hatchling suns on a sunken log in the Okefenokee Swamp. Mothers aggressively guard the nests when until the juveniles begin hunting on their own. American alligators were once threatened from hunting but with protections have recovered although hatchlings are vulnerable to predators.
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  • A juvenile alligator is born with a natural instinct to swim. They measure about 6 to 8 inches when newly hatched and live in small groups, called "pods." Although under the protective eye of their mothers who aggressively guard the nest, some 80 percent of juvenile alligators fall victim to predators such as birds, raccoons, bobcats, otters, snakes, large bass and larger alligators.
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  • Close up of an arrowhead-shaped leafed plant with thorns.
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  • Sheep share pasturage with a forlorn mule.
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  • Aerial view of a drag line that scrapes through rock after a explosives blast away the top of mountains. A fresh snow contrasts the blackened coal that is revealed. Mountaintop removal mining devastates the landscape, turning areas that should be lush with forests and wildlife into barren moonscapes.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023728.jpg
  • Aerial view of snow covered mountain top removal mining site. After blasting the top of a mountain, trucks remove debris dumping dirt and rock into valleys and streams destroying watersheds. Over 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried and 300,000 acres of diverse temperate hardwood forests obliterated with valley hills like the white V in the foreground. Pollution from toxic chemicals fill sludge ponds and in flooding, contaminate drinking water. A moonscape of unusable land is left.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996789.jpg
  • Arial view of a terraced V-shaped valley fill that sits at the edge of a reclaimed West Virginia mining site. Entire mountains are blasted away in mountaintop removal mining in order to obtain a small seam of coal. Unwanted rock is pushed into valleys and streams destroying natural watersheds and the length of the Ohio River has been filled in. The result is a threat to clean water and the biodiversity of the ecosystem.<br />
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The Central Appalachian Plateau was created 4 million years ago, and one of its richest assets is wilderness containing some of the world’s oldest and biologically richest temperate zone hardwood forest. A flattened moonscape on top is mostly unusable.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996274.jpg
  • The Wave, a fragile sandstone formation in Coyote Buttes section of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. The 280,000 acre wildness area is federally protected and a permit is required to reduce impact on the geological treasure.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705704.jpg
  • Sandstone-capped escarpment glows in the setting sun in an aerial view of the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. The 280,000-acre wilderness is located at the Utah/Arizona border where the wooded Paria Plateau stretches south and  drops 3,000 feet at the monument’s namesake—the Vermilion Cliffs.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705697.jpg
  • Steen's Mountain Wilderness is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  The aerial view shows a forty mile long escarpment in southeastern Oregon has a notch cut out of the top and drops abruptly to the dry Alvord Desert, 5,500 feet below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680978.jpg
  • Yellow Eurasian leafy spurge grows along clear waters of Medicine Lodge Creek in southern Utah where Bureau of Land Management and private land is intertwined.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680973.jpg
  • Aerial view of Pilot Rock at twilight. The iconic rock face is a plug of volcanic basalt that juts 400 feet above Cascade–Siskiyou National Monument in a crossroads of mountain ranges, geological eras and habitats. The 65,000-acre monument is at the junction of the Oregon and Cascades and Siskiyou Mountains with Mt. Shasta on the left rising in the far distance across the state line in California.
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  • Erosion-chiseled rock formations formed by volcanic eruption.
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  • Fish await further processing in oceanside village of Zhapo.
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  • Brown bears fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake. Kurilskoe Lake Preserve is a world heritage site and had serious poaching. But now, two or three wardens are always out on enforcement and they pack out for a month at a time. The official salary for wardens is $200 a month, but the WWF came in and supplemented salaries and bought them the equipment they need to do the job. WWF decided one of the gems of the reserve system that exists in all of Russia should be poaching free - and that also protects the brown bears.
    MM7593_20080812_06379.tif
  • Brown bears fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake. Kurilskoe Lake Preserve is a world heritage site and had serious poaching. But now, two or three wardens are always out on enforcement and they pack out for a month at a time.  The official salary for wardens is $200 a month, but the WWF came in and supplemented salaries and bought them the equipment they need to do the job. WWF decided one of the gems of the reserve system that exists in all of Russia should be poaching free - and that also protects the brown bears.
    MM7593_20080813_06845.tif
  • Photographed at night, restored moai with red topknots on Akakena Beach stand under night skies, windswept clouds and stars glowing in the distance on Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493996.JPG
  • A petroglyph with a birdman motif that is half man and half bird and connected to cult events at the sacred site Orango.<br />
The purpose of the Birdman competition was to obtain the first egg of the season from an offshore islet, Motu Nui. Contestants descended the sheer cliffs from Orongo and swam to Motu Nui where they awaited the coming of the birds. The first to procure an egg became the winner. He presented it to his sponsor who then was declared Birdman for that year, an important status position.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493993.JPG
  • A petroglyph of a face at Ahu Tongariki. Often overlooked because of the more visible moai statues on Easter Island, rock art petroglyphs are more sophisticated and unique in design.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493932.JPG
  • A single restored moai stands watch at Ahu Tongariki and serene Hanga Nui Bay.<br />
Ahu Tongariki is the largest ahu and its moais were toppled during the island's civil wars, and in the twentieth century the ahu was swept inland by a tsunami. It has since been restored and has fifteen moai, including one that weighs eighty-six tons, the heaviest ever erected on the island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493988.JPG
  • A small herd of wild horses, brought to Easter Island from Tahiti by Catholic missionaries in the 19th-century, graze on the island near the quarry.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1494001.JPG
  • A small breed of wild horses, brought over from Tahiti, graze on Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493942.JPG
  • Ancient Moai statues dot a hillside on Rano Raraku crater on Easter Island. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Rano Raraku was the main quarry for the massive monolithic sculptures created by the Rapa Nui.<br />
Statues lie in various states of production--some half carved, others broken or abandoned. Maoi stand half buried in the slope from years of erosion.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493964.JPG
  • Three volcanoes, quiet now, formed Easter Island half a million years ago.<br />
An aerial view of the island shows red scoria stone used for headpieces found on some of the moai came from solidified froth of volcano lava.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493975.JPG
  • Aerial photo showing a wate- filled cone of one of the three volcanoes, quiet now, but once formed Easter Island half a million years ago.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493976.JPG
  • Three volcanoes, now dormant, formed Easter Island half a million years ago.  Rano Kau is the largest crater on the island with an aerial view from the mirador on the headlands. Inside is a lagoon of fresh water filling the crater that is almost a mile wide and 1,000 feet high above the Pacific Ocean in Rapa Nui National Park.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1477354-2.JPG
  • A palm tree grove at Ahu Nau Nau surrounds a beach on a lush part of Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1494004.JPG
  • Restored moai with topknots on Akakena Beach. Two of the seven moai have deteriorated that stand above a white sand beach. Archaeological value is high, however, because it was the first ancient city on the island and founded by the first king of  Rapa Nui, Ariki Jotu Matua.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493995.JPG
  • Glowing under night skies, restored moai statues stand watch at Ahu Tongariki. The largest ahu on Easter Island, the moai were toppled during island civil wars and later swept inland by a tsunami in the 1960s.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493967-1.JPG
  • A small herd of wild horses, introduced from Tahiti by Catholic missionaries in the 19th-century, trek across Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493946-1.JPG
  • An ancient Moai statue and wild horses on Rano Raraku crater. Moai toppled along the road were left as rubble.Their eyes are not completed until they standing upright.<br />
A small herd of wild horses, introduced from Tahiti by Catholic missionaries in the 19th-century, trek across Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493936.JPG
  • Ancient Moai statues dot a hillside on Rano Raraku crater on Easter Island. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Rano Raraku was the main quarry for the massive monolithic sculptures created by the Rapa Nui.<br />
Statues lie in various states of production--some half carved, others broken or abandoned. Maoi stand half buried in the slope from years of erosion.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1477353-1.JPG
  • Ancient Moai statues dot a hillside on Rano Raraku crater on Easter Island. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Rano Raraku was the main quarry for the massive monolithic sculptures created by the Rapa Nui.<br />
Statues lie in various states of production--some half carved, others broken or abandoned. Maoi stand half buried in the slope from years of erosion.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1494003.JPG
  • Ancient Moai statues dot a hillside on Rano Raraku crater on Easter Island. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Rano Raraku was the main quarry for the massive monolithic sculptures created by the Rapa Nui.<br />
Statues lie in various states of production--some half carved, others broken or abandoned. Maoi stand half buried in the slope from years of erosion.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493935.JPG
  • Ahu Ature Huki is a lonely moai, more robust and older than its admired neighbors of the Ahu Nau Nau on Easter Island.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493999.JPG
  • Ancient Moai statues dot a hillside on Rano Raraku crater on Easter Island. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Rano Raraku was the main quarry for the massive monolithic sculptures created by the Rapa Nui.<br />
Statues lie in various states of production--some half carved, others broken or abandoned. Maoi stand half buried in the slope from years of erosion.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493992.JPG
  • Glowing under night skies, restored moai statues stand watch at Ahu Tongariki. The largest ahu on Easter Island, the moai were toppled during island civil wars and later swept inland by a tsunami in the 1960s.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1493990.JPG
  • A statue lies near a platform of other restored moai standing watch at Ahu Tongariki.<br />
The 15 statues on Ahu Tongriki were in ruins in the 1950's and a tsunami in the 1960's sent giant moai inland.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1477348.JPG
  • A restored lone moai located near Ahu Tongariki was taken to Japan for study and returned. It stands under the Rona Raraku quarry. The cliff on ocean side of the crater is formed by seawall erosion.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1494002.JPG
  • With ears pricked forward, a yearling thoroughbred curiously awaits at a white fence on Manchester Farm, a Thoroughbred horse with a barn that is located on the backside of Keeneland Race Track. What makes Kentucky special is that it is geologically favored for horses. Millions of years ago, layers of shells were buried and the crushed limestone makes the grass rich in calcium. As the land sinks, hills and valley are formed which make a perfect terrain for building strong muscles when horses run.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7017_720968-1.JPG
  • Cascada Cola de Caballo, Horsetail Fall, has a 75-foot drop as the waterfall flows through Mexico's largest preserve, Cumbres de Monterrey in Las Cumbres National Park south of Monterrey.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187052-3.JPG
  • Tourists are drawn to El Tatio, a geothermal field with geysers north of San Pedro at 4300 meters above sea level located in the Andes Mountains in the Atacama Desert.  More than 70 geysers and fumaroles spew hot water and steam as the sun rises in Chile near the Bolivian border.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187554-1.JPG
  • Lord of Sipan, important Moche burial site in Peru. The site was being looted but it was stopped and some tombs are restored with replicas to show what the graves looked like 1500 years ago. The treasure trove discovered included gold, silver, copper and semi-precious stones as well as hundreds of ceramic pots which contained food and drink for journey in the after life..  The Mochica leader was buried in all of this finery along with a warrior guard buried alive (with his feet cut off), three women, two assistants and a servant.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187667-1.JPG
  • Lord of Sipan, important Moche burial site in Peru. The site was being looted but it was stopped and some tombs are restored with replicas to show what the graves looked like 1500 years ago. The treasure trove discovered included gold, silver, copper and semi-precious stones as well as hundreds of ceramic pots which contained food and drink for journey in the after life..  The Mochica leader was buried in all of this finery along with a warrior guard buried alive (with his feet cut off), three women, two assistants and a servant.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187667.jpg
  • A spectacular formation of vibrant colors in swirls of fragile sandstone is known as The Wave and is located in the Coyote Buttes section of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. An unmarked wilderness trail limits hikers and requiries a permit from the Bureau of Land Management.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705699-4.JPG
  • A spectacular formation of vibrant colors in swirls of fragile sandstone is known as The Wave and is located in the Coyote Buttes section of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. An unmarked wilderness trail limits hikers and requiries a permit from the Bureau of Land Management.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705699-3.JPG
  • A brown bear fishing for salmon leaps into Kuril Lake while her cubs wait on the shore. Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-1.TIF
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