PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW

Sebastião Salgado

(1944–2025)

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Sebastião Salgado didn’t set out to become a photographer. Born in Brazil, the globetrotting Salgado earned a PhD in economics from Paris. He then started working with one of the rainforests’ most precious resources—coffee. This work sent him on many trips to Africa, where coffee plants come from. On one such trip, he felt the urge to document his travels, and that’s where photography entered his life.

Salgado had an eye for a story, and he told it through the lens of his camera. It’s through his black-and-white photography of the Amazon that so many people saw the rainforest and the people who live within it. He spent time with these Indigenous Peoples and brought their stories back with him. Salgado’s images have made it possible for all to see just how important it is for us to do something about deforestation. Not only that, but Salgado shared how these Indigenous Peoples work to preserve the rainforests, rivers, animals, and communities of the Amazon.

Ynés Mexía

(1870—1938)

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Ynés Mexía was a botanist, one of the greatest of her time, who understood the rich diversity of plant life on Earth. She collected over 145,000 samples and identified over 500 new plants along the way! From the tops of mountains to the depths of the Amazon Rainforest, Mexía was always collecting plants in the name of preservation. On one such adventure to the Amazon, she traveled 3,000 miles over the course of two and a half years.

Every day, she would go out to find specimens and document them. And all this to give us a greater insight into the little nuances that make the ecosystem so important.

Many of her groundbreaking discoveries and specimens are still studied and celebrated to this day. So, even if you can’t take a canoe down the Amazon River yourself, Mexía already did, giving the next generation of conservationists a clear starting point to understanding how we can keep the rainforests alive and well for everyone.