Tommaso Protti

The 10th Carmignac Photojournalism Award is dedicated to the Amazon and the issues related to its deforestation. It is chaired by Yolanda Kakabadse, Minister of the Environment of Ecuador between 1998 and 2000 and President of WWF from 2010 to 2017. The Award was awarded to Tommaso Protti.

From January to July 2019, Italian photojournalist Tommaso Protti, accompanied by British journalist Sam Cowie, travelled thousands of miles across the Brazilian Amazon to create this reportage. From the eastern region of Maranhão to the western region of Rondônia, through the states of Pará and Amazonas, they portrayed life in modern day Brazilian Amazon, where social and humanitarian crises overlap with the ongoing destruction of the rainforest, lungs of the planet.

“I wanted to illustrate the social transformations, focusing on the veiled truth of the bloodshed and destruction that are currently taking place in the region. These diverse forms of violence are the consequences of changes in the global market, as well as of the exponential increase of global consumption, from cocaine to beef. Scientists claim the forest is reaching a point of no return because of deforestation, fuelled by illegal logging, and because of land grabbing, agricultural expansion, state and private sectors led development and resource extraction projects. I believe it is important to raise awareness of this situation and question it.” Tommaso Protti

The Amazon

The Amazon is a vast region covering the territory of nine nations: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. The region has a surface area of 5,500,000 km2 and is crossed by the Amazon river, the second longest river in the world and the largest by discharge volume of water.

 In black, forest loss (deforestation, fires) between 2001 and 2018

The Amazon alone accounts for half of the remaining tropical forests on the planet. It is home to 70% of the world’s biodiversity and to one in ten of the world’s species. This territory is home to 30 million people, including 350 indigenous groups, most of whom live in their natural habitats, but the development of economic activities in the region mean that this ecosystem is under more threat than ever before.

Since 1999 at least 2,200 new species have been discovered in the Amazon biome, but with 17% of the Amazon’s surface area already destroyed, the rainforest is increasingly vulnerable.

Responsibility for the degradation and destruction of this fragile natural environment lies with climate change, but also human activity. The consequences are multiple and both local and global: greenhouse gas emissions, destruction of biodiversity, hydrological alterations and even soil erosion.

5.4 MILLION KM OF FOREST

420 ETHNICITIES

85K FIRES IN 2019

20%OF FOREST IN - 50 YEARS

Jury

Yolanda Kakabadse - Minister of the Environment in Ecuador (1998-2000) and President of WWF (2010-2017)
Simon Baker - Director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP)
Clinton Cargill - Photography Director of Vanity Fair
Alessia Glaviano - Photography Director of Vogue Italia, L’Uomo Vogue, Vogue.it Web Editor and Director of Photo Vogue Festival
Magdalena Herrera - Photography Director of Geo Magazine France
Kadir van Lohuizen - Photojournalist
Yuri Kozyrev Photojournalist
Stéphen Rostain Director of Research (Archéologie des Amériques) at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

Exhibitions

9.6.2021 – 17.7.2021 
Saatchi Gallery, Londres
Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY

5.6.2021 – 30.7.2021 
L’Evènement Photographique, Nancy
Grilles du Jardin du Palais du Gouvernement 54000 Nancy

4.12.2019 – 16.2.2020
Maison Européenne de la Photographie
5/7 rue de Fourcy 75004 Paris

4.12.2019 – 10.1.2020
Paris City Hall Gates
29 rue de Rivoli 75004 Paris

The Wash. Post  Kenneth Dickerman

“Protti’s resulting photographs are both haunting and poetic, presenting a harrowing picture of what life is like for people living in the Brazilian Amazon (…) a place that is grappling with social and humanitarian crises concurrently with the destruction of the rainforest.”

M Blogs Anne-Sophie Novel

“If this geographical area was chosen before the world discovered the devastating forest fires this summer, this report gives a spectacle that no longer flies over the devastation seen from the sky but reveals the devastation that is also taking place at human level.”

Radio Nova Luca Beux-Prere

“Ninety shots for a walk, Tommaso’s. The viewer’s gaze changes as the Amazonian walk progresses. No one, on leaving, will ever again have the same look on this immense territory that is changing, and whose fate is beginning to worry, and finally, beyond its own limits.”