Nick Brandt

Contributing photographer for Vital project highlighting irrecoverable carbon in Bolivia, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

Artist Statement

These photographs are part of The Day May Break, a global series portraying both people and animals that have been impacted by climate breakdown, environmental degradation and destruction. Chapter One was photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in 2020, Chapter Two in Bolivia in 2022.

The people in these photographs have all been badly affected by climate change. From floods to extreme droughts that destroyed their homes, land and livelihood, their lives have been dramatically impacted in ways from which it is hard to recover.

The photographs were taken at several animal sanctuaries and conservancies. The animals are almost all long-term rescues, victims of everything from habitat destruction to wildlife trafficking. These animals can never be released back into the wild. As a result, they are almost all habituated to humans, and so it was safe for human strangers to be close to them, photographed in the same frame at the same time.

The fog is the unifying visual, symbolic of a natural world now rapidly fading from view. Created by fog machines on location, the fog is also an echo of the smoke from wildfires, intensified by climate change, devastating so much of the planet.

With these three countries — Kenya, Zimbabwe and Bolivia — there is a common link: they are among those least responsible for climate breakdown. Their global carbon emissions have been tiny compared to industrial nations. Yet, like so many other poorer countries in the world, they are disproportionately exposed to and harmed by its effects. The grim irony is that many rural people in these countries are the most vulnerable to the calamitous consequences of the industrial world’s ways.

Even though Bolivia is landlocked, it is - for now - one of the fifteen most biodiverse countries on the planet, with a huge diversity of landscape due to its dramatic variations in altitude, from Andean glaciers and bone-dry salt deserts to Amazonian rainforest. And that rainforest contains a huge amount of irrecoverable carbon.

However — these days there is always a “however” — the annual forest fires in Bolivia have dramatically intensified in recent years. Most were started by uncontrolled burning to prepare land for agriculture, but the speed and intensity and size of these fires is like nothing before. Climate change — with rising temperatures and prolonged periods of drought — is making forests much drier and hotter. This has meant that in the last few years giant apocalyptic wildfires have swept through Bolivia and surrounding countries, annihilating countless wild animals. In 2024, the numbers of fires in Bolivia in June, July, and September all broke records with more than 150,000 square kilometers reported burned that year, an area larger than Greece.

As for Kenya and Zimbabwe, people might think that savannah landscapes are less significant when it comes to irrecoverable carbon. But sub-Saharan Africa’s population of 1.25 billion people today is expected to reach 2 billion people by 2050. In the process, vast areas of wild land - both grasslands and woodlands - are being converted to agricultural and urban development. There is only so much space.

These last few years, when I look at imagery of many places of natural beauty on the planet, it’s with a bittersweet feeling. I find myself wondering, how long will those places remain unspoiled, given the speed of environmental degradation? How long before scorching wildfires claim them? So many forests — damaged by wildfires and extreme droughts — are not recovering or are just a pale shadow of their former glorious incarnation.

As the natural world we knew rapidly disappears before our eyes, we yearn, we ache, for what was. I’m stating the obvious, but, apparently, it needs to be repeated: in destroying nature, we will also destroy ourselves.

There needs to be a fundamental reset in the way humans live their lives on this earth. There needs to be a true stewardship. We need to all become good ancestors. We need to adopt a way of life that reduces the environmental impact our actions will have on those billions of unborn yet to come. Can we show that we care about the humans and animals and trees that we will never live to see?

It is now too late to stop climate breakdown. This is evident from the speed with which climate disasters around the world are already unfolding, more grimly ahead of schedule than even climate scientists’ most alarming projections.

However, that should not for one second stop us from doing everything possible to minimize the harm. We can still help protect critical ecosystems and save countless lives.

The costs of continuing to keep our heads in the sand, or denying altogether, are unacceptable on so many levels: environmentally and ethically of course, but also in purely pragmatic terms, financially, because of course the costs now will be nothing compared to paying for the apocalyptic damage in the decades to come.

It is better to be angry and active than angry and passive. Once we become active, the despair feels less overwhelming. Our actions, no matter how small, can energize and focus us.

Those of us who care must continue to do our damnedest to minimize the damage as best we can. To keep on fighting for all in the here and now, and for those beings that come after us.

In closing, I return to the people and animals photographed in this series. In spite of their trauma and loss, they are survivors. They are alive. They are here. And in that — in their survival through such extreme hardships — lies hope and possibility.

So, the day may break, and the world may shatter. Or perhaps, the day may break, and the dawn still come.

Humanity’s choice. Our choice.