The above-featured image is for illustration and is HuffPost.com.
Bain & Company recently launched a report highlighting the increasing demand for sustainable tourism among leisure travellers across the globe, driving the market for sustainable tourism to develop strongly in the coming years.
Leisure travellers worldwide will choose destinations and providers (airlines, hotels, restaurants, and tour companies) based on their sustainability records and are starting to pay a premium for it, said the report titled: “Sustainable Tourism: An Untapped Opportunity for Green Growth.”
The research showed that travellers feel that the travel and tourism sector is not making enough effort to be more sustainable and there is much this sector can do to protect the environment.
Karim Henain
We spoke to Karim Henain, Partner, Bain & Company Middle East on some of the issues raised by the report. Here’s an excerpt:
What are some of the key findings in the report?
Following a dip in 2020, tourism is again on the rise, expected to reach $17 trillion in size by 2027, compared to $11 trillion prior to Covid-19. There is an increasing appetite for more sustainable tourism among leisure travellers across the globe, driving the market for sustainable tourism to develop strongly in the coming years. Leisure travelers worldwide will choose destinations and providers (airlines, hotels, restaurants, and tour companies) based on their sustainability records and are starting to pay a premium for it. On the other hand, research shows that travellers feel that the travel and tourism sector is making little or no effort to be more sustainable, indicating that there is still much room for the sector to respond and make a difference.
What makes sustainability enthusiasts such an important target group?
Sustainability enthusiasts were found in the six markets covered in the research (Germany, Italy, France, the UK, Saudi Arabia, and China), but demographics varied by market.
For example, sustainability enthusiasts from China and Saudi Arabia were predominantly highly educated (university or higher) Millennials, whereas their European counterparts were almost equally spread across age groups, income, and education levels.
Sustainability enthusiasts are such an important group, because compared with the rest of the survey respondents, they were:
4x more likely to consider sustainability aspects as “extremely important” when choosing a holiday destination.
7x more likely to recommend a holiday destination driven by sustainability considerations.
1.6x more willing to pay for more sustainable choices, at a premium of 15 to 20 percentage points compared to non-enthusiasts.
While we recognise that there is a “say vs do” gap in terms of what consumers actually choose and how much more they are willing to pay for more sustainable choices, sustainability enthusiasts remain a significant segment that countries can tackle through different sustainability offerings.
What is the status of sustainable tourism in UAE, KSA and Egypt?
Driven by the opportunity presented by sustainable tourism, holiday destinations and travel and tourism providers worldwide take steps to improve their sustainability performance and traveller perception of how sustainable their practices and offerings are. Egypt has already launched several initiatives to improve the sustainability performance of its travel and tourism sector.
To evaluate how travellers perceive Egypt’s sustainability efforts, we asked the survey respondents to rank Egypt’s sustainability performance vs main competing destinations in MENA (Greece, Turkey, Tunisia, UAE, Morocco).
Overall, Greece ranked first as the holiday destination perceived to be most sustainable, while Egypt ranked fourth.
On the other hand, the perception of Egypt significantly improved among sustainability enthusiasts, while we saw significant differences in how Egypt and other competing destinations were perceived across the different markets (China, Saudi Arabia, Europe).
What is the status of sustainable tourism in the UAE?
The UAE has taken multiple steps towards sustainable tourism. For example, Dubai has recently launched, in collaboration with the hospitality sector, the Dubai Sustainable Tourism stamp, which encourages hotels throughout the Emirate to take initiatives around energy and water efficiency, waste management, and staff education and engagement.
Our research shows that the perception of the UAE with regards to sustainable tourism remains to be still in the middle of the pack, however, with significant variation among different traveller segments. For example, sustainability enthusiasts from the ME region see UAE to be the top destination for sustainable tourism compared to other markets. Whereas individuals from the same segment from other markets (e.g., China and Europe) see the UAE lagging other regional tourism markets.
Oil and gas commerce leaves an invisible footprint on Gulf’s non-oil economies in their attempt to move out of the ease and their related accommodating revenues.
The above image is for illustration and credit to Blue Bay Travel.
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Oil leaves invisible footprint on Gulf’s non-oil economies
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Touted progress in diversifying Gulf economies beyond the fossil fuel rent comes with a caveat. Oil and gas revenues indirectly propel large chunks of the non-oil economy through public expenditures such as wages, subsidies and infrastructure spending.
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This picture shows cranes on a construction site with a backdrop of the Dubai skyline, including Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, on May 23, 2023. – GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects the non-oil segment of Gulf economies to grow 45% faster than the overall gross domestic product (GDP) this year, which includes the oil and gas sector. The figure is in line with the 2000-2019 average trend.
This follows a unique situation in 2022 when the Gulf’s overall gross domestic product expanded 57% faster than the non-oil segment after oil prices surged to their highest levels since 2008 as Western sanctions against Russia threatened to disrupt global oil supply. Even so, the World Bank noted in a May 2023 report that Gulf economies’ “stellar growth” last year “was not just a result of buoyant hydrocarbon prices but also continued growth of non-oil economies.”
“Hopefully by 2030, I wouldn’t care if the oil price is zero”, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister Mohammed Al Jadaan told CNN in 2017. But the prospect of decoupling the Gulf’s overall economy from its main export commodity in the near future has long been exaggerated.
“It is a mixed picture,” said Justin Alexander, director of Khalij Economics, a consulting firm. “Looking at just non-oil GDP figures is misleading.” Parts of the economy, he said, “are basically the result of the recycling of oil revenues through government spending rather than independent value creation.” Since oil revenues still account for about two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s government revenue, the kingdom remains a petrostate.
Oil is sticky
Across Gulf economies, most economic developments are directly or indirectly driven by government spending, according to Jalal Qanas, an assistant professor in economics at Qatar University. The share of Gulf countries’ GDP from government expenditure has been trending up since the 2007-09 global financial crisis. In 2021, IMF data showed that it ranged from 29% in the UAE to 52% in Kuwait.
The fossil fuel rent’s invisible footprint runs deep into Gulf’s non-oil economy, from grocery shopping, entertainment activities, cab rides, and cars paid with public sector wages to flats bought with subsidized housing loans and wedding ceremonies funded by marriage grants. Alexander called it “complicated interlinkages” between Gulf’s economies and governments. Yet, non-oil economies are the cornerstone of everyday life in the Gulf region, a major source of employment and social interactions.
In Qatar, the government has wound down its public spending frenzy estimated at $300 billion ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2022. “Once you turn off the tap, will the private sector survive?” Qanas asked. “We need to wait at least one to two years to see how the country’s private sector will behave with less government spending”
Saudi Arabia launched the $1.3 trillion Shareek initiative in 2021 to push companies to invest domestically, particularly in the non-oil economy. But there is a catch: two of the initiative’s largest contributors are the kingdom’s top fossil fuel giants, national oil company Saudi Aramco and petrochemical firm SABIC.
Also, the private sector has done a poor job so far of converting the Gulf’s fossil fuel rent into economic sectors that can stand on their own. Corporate performance in Gulf economies, although it varies between countries and industries, is deteriorating. Profitability of the median firm in the region plummeted from 15.2% in 2007 to 4.1% in 2021, the IMF found.
Dubai has “set an example”
A notable exception is Dubai, where oil output peaked in 1991. The emirate’s oil sector slipped from about half of the local economy 50 years ago to only 1% of pre-pandemic GDP as the sheikhdom, one of the seven that form the UAE, built the Gulf’s first post-oil economy. In the third quarter of 2022, wholesale, retail trade, real estate, construction, manufacturing, and financial and insurance activities accounted for 60% of its GDP. The emirate’s push to become a global hub decouples its economy further from the region’s oil boom and bust cycles.
Tourism and real estate insulate Dubai’s economy from the wider Gulf. Seven out of ten tourists who visited Dubai in the first quarter of 2023 did not come from the Middle East, while top non-resident buyers of real estate in Dubai in 2022 were Russian, British, Indian, German, and French citizens.
Dubai may be the first, but it will not be the last Gulf post-oil economy. Omani luxury fragrance brand Amouage sells its perfume in more than 80 countries, Bahrain is a fintech hub for the Middle East, Qatar makes its mark in global sporting events, and Muslim pilgrims from all over the world flock to Saudi Arabia’s Mecca.
“Dubai has set an example for the region, and now Gulf countries are all trying, I would not say to copy, but to learn from what Dubai did,” Qanas said.
The answer to whether blue is the new green would be in all those opportunities for developing a climate-resilient blue economy. Let us see what in the Middle East Institute are the main insights . . .
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Is blue the new green? Opportunities for developing a climate-resilient blue economy in the MENA region
The World Bank defines the blue economy as “the sustainable use of maritime resources for economic growth, jobs, and improved livelihoods while preserving the marine ecosystem’s health.” The aim is to strike a balance between conservation and resource extraction when developing marine-based economies. The blue economy can offer huge potential in the area of climate change mitigation and resilience, given the fact that marine habitats, such as mangroves, tidal marshes, and seagrass meadows, provide significant protection from erratic climate events, including cyclones and floods.
These key coastal systems sequester and store more carbon per unit area than terrestrial forests. In the case of mangroves and coastal wetlands, they can store three to five times more carbon per equivalent area than tropical forests, making them one of the world’s most important natural “carbon sinks.” Despite representing less than 5% of the global land area and less than 2% of the ocean, they sequester carbon at a rate 10 times greater than terrestrial forests, and thereby represent an important nature-based solution for mitigating the effects of climate change. In addition, marine ecosystems provide nursery and breeding grounds for commercial fish, habitat for endangered species such as turtles, staging points for migratory birds, and filter water flowing into seas and oceans. Thus, they also play a key role in ensuring food security and sustaining coastal communities, as well as diversifying livelihoods, including fishing and tourism.
The Middle East and North Africa region boasts vast coastal zones on the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Gulf, and the Atlantic Ocean. These extended coastal environments are rich in marine ecosystems and serve as vital routes for international trade, alongside other economic activities. There are four crucial areas where MENA countries would benefit from developing the blue economy that would aid in reversing natural resource degradation, sustaining inclusive economic development, and building resilience to climate change. These areas include developing renewable energy sources, investing in sustainable aquaculture, decarbonizing maritime transportation, and developing resilient and carbon-neutral tourism.
Developing renewable maritime energy sources
There is enormous untapped potential for blue renewable energy sources in MENA, including well-established sources like offshore wind, as well as nascent technologies such as wave, tidal, current, ocean thermal, and biomass production from algae. All of these renewable sources could contribute to meeting rising energy and electricity demand at a lower cost, achieving energy independence, and helping the region to meet its carbon reduction commitments in a way that aligns with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
For example, wind energy potential is especially high in North African countries, and it is estimated that wind power potential in this region is 34 times greater than that of northern European countries. Morocco, for example, is estimated to have an offshore wind potential of 200 GW, benefiting from average wind speeds of 7.5-9.5 meters per second (m/s) in the south and 9.5-11.0 m/s in the north. Algeria also has tremendous technical wind energy potential estimated at 7,700 GW. To put this in perspective, the total wind capacity in Europe at the end of 2020 was only 216 GW.
Other potential locations for offshore wind farms (where annual wind speeds are greater than 5m/s at 80 meters above sea level) include coasts along the Gulf of Suez and Aqaba in Egypt, Jordan, north-west Saudi Arabia, the south-east coast of Oman, northern Libya, and southern Tunisia. Egypt is something of a regional leader when it comes to building wind farms, with the largest wind farm in the country being a 545-MW facility in Zafarana. In addition, Cairo has plans to expand its wind energy capacity through two memoranda of understanding, one with the Saudi renewable energy developer ACWA to build a 10-GW wind farm and another with the UAE’s Masdar to build a second 10-GW onshore wind farm. These would be the second-largest wind farms in the world behind the Gansu project in China, which has a projected capacity of 20 GW. It is expected that the Masdar onshore wind farm will generate about 48,000 GWh of clean energy a year, offsetting some 23.8 million tons of CO2 emissions — about 9% of the country’s total carbon emissions. Egypt’s plans to add 25 GW of wind power capacity represents a seven-fold increase in its total renewable-energy capacity, which was 3.4 GW at the end of 2021.
Here are The Latest Middle East & North Africa Tourism Statistics [2022-2023] as compiled by TrustYou
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Hospitality Hotspots: The Latest Middle East & North Africa Tourism Statistics [2022-2023]
By Catalina Brinza
The latest Middle East & North Africa tourism statistics from top-performing countries based on the latest third-party and TrustYou data [2022-2023]
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) travel industry benefited from one of the strongest recoveries last year, especially the Middle East. While the global recovery was estimated at 63% in 2022, arrivals in the Middle East reached 83% of pre-pandemic numbers. Hosting FIFA World Cup was a major contributor to the success and increase of tourism there. In Q4 2022, the region registered a 4% increase in arrivals compared to 2019, way above the global numbers (a 30% decrease compared to 2019).
MENA is a dynamic and diverse region with much to offer for leisure and business travelers: luxurious hotels and restaurants, rich culture and traditions, breathtaking scenery, and historical landmarks.
To give you an overview of the state of MENA travel, we looked at the top-performing MENA countries based on guest feedback and compiled the latest third-party and TrustYou statistics.
#1 Top-Performing Countries in MENA
Using TrustYou’s Performance Score, we looked at the top-performing countries in terms of reputation. Performance Score is a metric showing an accommodation’s and/or restaurant’s average rating over a selected period. For this list, we chose the countries with the highest review volumes – over 100k reviews in 2022 and 25k reviews in Q1 2023. We ordered the countries with the same performance score based on the highest review volume.
Compared to 2022, Q1 2023 brought a newcomer to the list: Egypt, currently fourth in our top-performing MENA countries.
What makes these countries receive higher scores from travelers? We decided to take a deep dive into the latest statistics to understand the specifics of each country and identify emerging trends.
#2 Morocco Tourism Statistics Onwards and Upwards
In Q1-Q3 2022, Morocco ranked third among the most visited Arab countries, with 11 million visitors, representing 84% of the 2019 numbers. Saudi Arabia ranked 1st, with 18 million visitors, followed by United Arab Emirates (UAE), with 15 million visitors.
Casablanca is among the most popular tourist destinations in Marocco
Last year, the sector’s revenue more than doubled compared to 2021, reaching 91 billion dirhams, exceeding 2019 levels.
The historic success of the national team at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar brought more than a sense of unprecedented pride for the North-African country—the interest in visiting Morocco surged in the first months of 2023. Forty days after the World Cup, the country registered a 40% increase in arrivals.
By the end of February 2023, 1.9 million tourists visited Morocco, 464% more than in 2022.The authorities seek ways to capitalize on these successes and substantially boost the sector. By 2026, Morocco aims to reach the top 10 global destinations and increase its number of arrivals to 17.5 million tourists. The actions that will help achieve these targets include launching new air routes, 200k new jobs, and a $580 million investment in the sector.
#3 Qatar Tourism Statistics
Qatar was the first Arab country to host a FIFA World Cup. What’s next after the World Cup?
The FIFA World Cup brought an impressive number of visitors to Qatar. In November and December 2022, international arrivals more than tripled compared to the previous months.
International arrivals registering record increases during the World Cup, source: Qatar Tourism
This event placed QATAR on the world tourism map, with authorities aiming to increase the country’s attractiveness.
By 2030, Qatar wants to reach 6 million tourists annually and increase tourism contribution to GDP from 7% to 12%. Immediately after the World Cup, Qatar registered another win. Doha was chosen as the Arab Capital of Tourism awarded by the Arab Ministerial Council for Tourism, proving its commitment to improving its performance as a destination. Among other indicators of excellence, Qatar Airlines have been chosen for the seventh time as the best airline worldwide, based on 14 million surveys distributed across 100 countries by Skytrax.
The first numbers for 2023 also show an encouraging recovery. Qatar Tourism reports 340k arrivals in January 2023 and 389k in February 2023.
Further plans include hosting a few sports events – the 2023 Asian Football Cup and the Asia Games. Qatar is also preparing its candidacy for the 2036 Olympic Games. All these actions will help leverage the stadiums built to host the FIFA World Cup.
#4 Israel Tourism Statistics
The Holy Land welcomed 2.7 million international visitors in 2022 – 60% compared to 2019. The first data for 2023 shows an accelerated recovery – 199% more tourists visited the country compared to Q1 2022, reaching 87% of pre-pandemic levels.
Jerusalem is a top destination for religious pilgrimages. One of the world’s oldest and most sacred cities, it attracts more than 1.5 million Jewish, Muslim, and Christian pilgrims each spring, increasing the city’s population by 55% during Passover, Ramadan, and Easter. Tourism Continues to Be VAT Exempt After Pressures From the Industry
The Netanyahu government planned to cancel the 17% tax on services exemption for tourists starting with the next state budget. Currently, travelers visiting Israel are exempt from the tax on accommodation, car rental, travel agency services, catering, etc. The government estimated that reintroducing the tax can generate up to $500 million yearly. But industry experts said the losses would be more significant than the gains. This proposal, which also was rejected in 2013, didn’t pass a ministerial committee.
#5 United Arab Emirates Tourism Statistics
When thinking about the Emirates, one place is at the top of the mind of almost every tourist: Dubai. In 2022, the iconic destination welcomed nearly 14.4 million overnight visitors, a 97% increase from 2021 and 86% of the 2019 volume – above the global averages for recovery indicators. The occupancy rate also increased – from 67% in 2021 to 73% in 2022.
The beginning of 2023 is more than encouraging. The first numbers for January and February show a 42% increase in tourism visitors compared to last year.
In 2023, a new decade starts for Dubai’s economy and tourism with the Dubai Economic Agenda D33. The strategy aims to double the size of Dubai’s economy by 2033 and place it among the top three global cities for tourism and business.
Scrapping Taxes to Boost Tourism
Both Dubai and Abu Dhabi are revising certain taxes to make the tourism sector more attractive for travelers and industry professionals. Since the beginning of 2023, Dubai has no longer applied the 30% municipality tax on alcohol. Tourists and ex-pats don’t have to pay fees to get an individual liquor license for purchasing alcohol.
Abu Dhabi is also scrapping taxes in an effort to boost event tourism. Organizers are now exempted from the 10% tax per ticket sold.
#6 Jordan Tourism Statistics
In 2022, Jordan registered an increase of 110.5% in tourism revenue, corresponding to a recovery in visitor arrivals – 5.05 million, compared to 2.36 million in 2021. The income has slightly surpassed the pre-pandemic levels by 0.4%.
2023 looks even more promising: in the first quarter, the Kingdom’s tourism revenue grew by 88.4% compared to the same period in 2022. The number of overnight visits increased by 90.7% compared to 2022, surpassing the pre-pandemic volume by 5%.
In March 2023, another Jordanian landmark was recognized for its focus on preserving traditions and promoting inclusiveness and accessibility. The village of Umm Qais received the UNWTO’s Best Tourism Villages Award.
View of the ruins of the ancient city of Gadara in Umm Qais. The village recently focused on reviving the Aqueduct Tunnel to scale up adventure tourism. Known as the longest water tunnel in the world, the Aqueduct connects Southern Syria with Umm Quais. Tourism Reform Continues
In April 2023, the government launched the third phase of reforming the tourism sector. Part of the Kingdom’s National Tourism Strategy 2021-2025, this stage focuses on improving the licensing system by creating a clear and simplified regulatory framework for businesses in the sector.
#7 Egypt Tourism Statistics
Egypt recorded a 46% growth in the number of tourists in 2022 compared to 2021. Last year, 11.7 million visitors entered the country of pyramids.
Authorities expect a 28% increase in the number of tourists in 2023. The recent data for the first months of the year indicate a strong beginning. In February and March alone, the number of tourists increased by 34% compared to 2022.
The Pyramids of Giza are an iconic destination attracting more than 14 million visitors yearly. An Ambitious Strategy
According to the recently adopted tourism strategy, the government aims to attract 30 million tourists by 2030. This will be possible if the yearly growth reaches 25%-30%.
Doubling the hotel rooms, enhancing air connectivity, investing in promotional projects, and improving the overall visitors’ experience are among the main priorities to help boost tourism.
Among the first actions taken by the government are focused on simplifying the visa process. In March, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced that citizens of more than 180 countries can apply for a 5-year multiple-entry visa. Tourist visas for certain countries will be automatically renewed at Egyptian airports.
#8 How TrustYou Can Help Destinations Attract More Visitors
For destinations, the competition is getting stronger in the post-pandemic scene. Countries are planning elaborate strategies to help the sector go beyond recovery and make tourism a driver of economic growth.
A true understanding of customer profiles in the post-pandemic world is the key to luring high-yielding tourists to your destination and making connections that enable unforgettable experiences. This is made possible through one thing only: listening to travelers. Listening gets you feedback and data.
Create inspiring, exciting, unforgettable experiences. Collect feedback. Attract more visitors.
With TrustYou’s reputation management platform, you access valuable insights from thousands of hotel reviews – to understand your visitor’s behavior and improve key areas. You can integrate our review widgets onto your DMO website to give travelers the information they need to make a booking decision. Benchmark yourself against competitor destinations to identify your strengths and weaknesses to position yourself properly in the market. Help your DMO’s accommodations build their collection and understanding of guest feedback to increase the number of reviews. Contact us today to find out how to keep your visitors happy every step of the way.
Catalina Brinza
Catalina is a social media and data enthusiast. At TrustYou, she’s on the mission to bring the most out of travel and hospitality data. One day, she hopes to experience Japan’s culture to its fullest.
In Architectural DesignTRAVEL, 9 Stunning Pictures of Earth You’ve Probably Never Seen are diligently offered for the admiration and/or embezzlement of each and every one of us. Would these 9 Stunning Pictures of Earth that You’ve Probably Never Seen help in any way as Tips on environmental protection?
The image above is a Photo: Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
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9 Stunning Pictures of Earth You’ve Probably Never Seen
From inside a sinkhole in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula to Baobab trees in sub-Saharan Africa, these images are as shocking as they are beautiful
For years, amid growing awareness of how finite our planet’s resources are, sustainability has become the watchword in architecture and design. Anyone with a pulse will be well aware of our ongoing climate crisis: In the past half century, global temperatures have risen an average of roughly one quarter degree Fahrenheit per decade, almost twice as fast as the previous half century. And scientists predict that in the next 20 years the global average temperature will rise by around a third of a degree Fahrenheit per decade.
As we celebrate Earth Day, it’s important to acknowledge that any built environment is inextricably linked to the health of its natural surroundings. Here, study the works of nine talented photographers who captured nature’s strength, as well as its fragility—its diversity and its depletion. Photographer Edward Burtynsky says he hopes his images raise awareness: “It’s to show the cost of growing our civilization without the necessary consideration for sustainable industrial practices.”
Seeing the images below should not only raise awareness, but also alarm to the delicateness of our only and beautiful planet.
Photo: Beth Moon
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Baobab Tree (sub-Saharan Africa)
Nicknamed The Tree of Life, the sacred baobab can live more than 2,000 years. Its massive trunk stores enough water for it to thrive—and even bear fruit—in sub-Saharan Africa’s desolate dry season. “It is hard not to fall under the spell of these wildly eccentric, gigantic trees,” photographer Beth Moon, who has been photographing baobabs since 2006, said in an interview. But many of the largest specimens have been collapsing under their own weight, felled by dehydration brought on by drought and higher temperatures.
In her oversize black-and-white photo book, Baobab (Abbeville Press, November 2021), Moon pays tribute to these endangered succulents, with dozens of breathtaking duotone portraits of some of the oldest baobab trees in Madagascar, Botswana, South Africa, and Senegal.
HALLDOR KOLBEINS/Getty Images
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Fagradalsfjall (near Reykjavík, Iceland)
On March 19, 2021, Fagradalsfjall, a dormant volcano about 30 miles outside Reykjavík, Iceland, began erupting for the first time in almost 6,000 years. A few days later, Halldor Kolbeins was in a single-engine plane, documenting the twin streams of lava oozing from the mountain. Kolbeins has been working as a photographer in Iceland for over two decades, capturing the nation’s otherworldly landscapes for National Geographic, among others. “My admiration for nature came as a natural thing since I grew up in northern and west Iceland, where the sunsets are intense and the northern lights are totally unspoiled by city lights,” Kolbeins explained.
Photo: Martin Broen
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Sinkhole (Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico)
This series by Argentinian photographer Martin Broen may look like it was shot on an alien landscape. But the eerie images were actually taken inside a cenote, or natural sinkhole, in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula—part of the largest system of underground caves on earth.
“Being a technical diver and underwater photographer gives me access to discover magical underwater worlds which are not easily accessible,” Broen, an industrial designer who designed some of his own custom equipment, said in a statement. This image, Flooded Cave, won Photo of the Year at the 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest.
Photo: David Neilson
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Patagonia, Antarctica
Australian landscape photographer David Neilson’s Chasing the Mountain Light (Abbeville Press, October 2022) combines a fascinating memoir with stunning black-and-white photographs that embody his lifelong passion for photography, climbing, and preserving untamed spaces like Patagonia and the Australian Alps. “I’m interested in where other people’s love for wild places comes from,” Neilson told the Sierra Club.
5/9 Upstate New York
Carolyn Marks Blackwood has been photographing the stretch of the Hudson River near her upstate New York home for over two decades, dutifully capturing the changing waters—which freeze up and shatter like glass in winter.
Water, Water, Everywhere, a collection of Marks Blackwood’s photos of the Hudson, both frigid and flowing, went on view at LA’s Von Lintel Gallery in December 2022. The name of the show, taken from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, is a nod to the growing climate crisis, Marks Blackwood said a statement: “Especially this last summer [2022], severe droughts and extreme heat hit many locations around the world while others experienced extreme storms and rainfall, which caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides.” Water is essential for life,” she added, “[but] it can be a hugely destructive force.”
Photo: Jassen Todorov
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Victorville Airport (near Apple Valley, California)
Many of Jassen Todorov’s most acclaimed images, like this photo— which won grand prize in the 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest—were taken from the cockpit of his 1978 Piper Warrior. The view is of thousands of Volkswagens and Audis parked at Victorville Airport near Apple Valley, California. The airport, tucked in the southwestern edge of the Mojave Desert, is a boneyard for decommissioned airplanes destined to be sold for parts or scrap. But when Volkswagen had to issue a massive recall in 2015, the airport also became one of 37 depots housing thousands of rusting VWs. “These cars are just sitting out there and collecting dust,” Todorov told Nat Geo. “By capturing scenes like this one, I hope we will all become more conscious and more caring for our beautiful planet.”
MARTIN VALIGURSKY
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To Sua Ocean Trench (Upolu Island, Samoa)
The Pacific Islands are on the front lines of climate change. Based in Brisbane, photographer Martin Valigursky has captured the region’s remaining unspoiled beauty, including To Sua Ocean Trench on Samoa’s Upolu island. At this swimming hole, a lush landscape of plant-covered volcanic basalt suddenly gives way to a saltwater tidepool that’s nearly 100 feet deep. Daredevils will want to take a flying leap into the crystal clear waters. Everyone else uses the steep but sturdy wooden ladder.
Photo: Armin Dett
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Moth (Masoala National Park, Madagascar)
After photographing the moths of Costa Rica, German photographer Armin Dett turned his lens halfway around the world—to Madagascar, where millennia of isolation off the coast of southern Africa has enabled a panoply of unique flora and fauna to evolve.
That includes the amazing array of butterflies and moths in Masoala National Park, the largest of the island’s protected areas. Dett has selected hundreds of images of these colorful lepidoptera for his upcoming photo book Magic Eyes of Masoala (Benteli Publishing, November 2023). All specimens were photographed alive and then released, providing a beautiful—and essential—record of their diversity as habitat destruction and climate change threaten their home.
Photo: Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
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Salt Ponds (near Naglou Sam Sam, Senegal)
Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky’s latest collection captures aerial views from across sub-Saharan Africa. Starkly surreal images emerge out of the the tracks of human industry, from salt flats in Botswana to iron mines in South Africa. African Studies (Steidl, April 2023) reflects on how rapidly ancient landscapes are altered and natural resources depleted.
Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa some 200,000 years ago as a result of a climate shift causing extreme droughts. In the 21st century, Burtynsky said in a statement, we’ve returned “to one of the last places on Earth to be swept into the unrelenting machinations of the human industrial complex. The African continent, boasting a tremendous wealth of unexploited resources, is a fragile, final frontier, resting squarely in the crosshairs of progress.”
Earth has been used as a building material for at least the last 12,000 years. Ethnographic research into earth being used as an element of Aboriginal architecture in Australia suggests its use probably goes back much further.
Traditional construction methods were no match for the earthquake that rocked Morocco on Friday night, an engineering expert says, and the area will continue to see such devastation unless updated building techniques are adopted.
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