I learned to be a hot-air balloon pilot to take tourists over the Masai Mara Reserve in order to earn some money and finance the work I was doing with my wife, Anne. We were studying the life of a family of lions for more than two years. Taking pictures was a way to capture information we could not put in words.

An image of the earth, its landscapes, directly affects people. The beauty of the earth creates enormous emotion, and through that emotion, you can transmit knowledge and raise consciousness

I always take hundreds and hundreds of pictures. I used to work for National Geographic, and they gave us a lot of film.

It's time to come together. We all have the power to change, so what are we waiting for?

I'm not an expert when it comes to technology, but what changed things for me was autofocus. I used to have to throw away half my pictures because it was so difficult to get the focus right.

For nearly two years, I was flying above the planet with my camera. I knew straight away that this was something important to do, just at this moment, a portrait of the planet for the millennium year. I worked in 80 countries, fighting for money all the time.

The whole world is determined by trade - which is really the blood of the world. The driving force is everyone's desire to have a better life. How? By consuming. For countries, the "Holy Grail" is economic growth.