A tribute to the Blue Planet in more than 200 stirring images

Spectacular best-of by the multi-award-winning photographer

The critically acclaimed Special Edition now finally available as a trade edition

"This book has an ambitious title: THE WORLD. This is by no means to say that I have been everywhere in the world and seen everything. There are many places I have not yet visited, and places I have visited without taking professional photograph and of which my iPhone is the only visual memory. I very rarely photograph cities, for example. It has always been nature and remote places that have attracted my attention. This book contains some of those impressions. If it is an incomplete version of our planet, it is because it is a very personal rendering of what I have seen and enjoyed of the world. Although I have explored around 180 countries, this book is not meant to be a mere tick-list - that would be a way of travelling that does not suit me at all. During my travels, I have seen too often the damage done by tourism for tourism's sake. Although this book is primarily a tribute to nature, I have to be frank about my concerns. I often ask myself whether I should take these pictures or whether I am not encouraging people to visit the places photographed, and thus contributing to their ecological decline. I also ask myself whether it is morally right to travel to the end of the world and pretend that no one has ever been there. People have been there, and I have been there. Do I feel guilty for disturbing the peace of nature? Contributing to climate change? Of course I do. But I also feel compelled to capture the incredible beauty of this planet. This book is my grateful homage to that glorious diversity. Part of me wants to keep the landscapes hidden, like a secret shared only between me and the wilderness. But I also hope that by showing these images - and now also starting to take interested people on private tours to my favourite places - I will move more and more people to protect some of the beauty and fragility they see in the world."