Only protect...
The chilling message of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, conducted by more than 1,360 experts worldwide at the behest of the UN.

LIFE
Egrets and tree frogs; migrant families and cityscapes: why the sixth and greatest extinction in the planet’s history is happening now.

Life – the facts

AIR
From desert storms to plane travel and smokestacks, how the air we breathe may prove to be our downfall.

Air – the facts

WATER
Bleached coral and beached ships; lost wetlands and sinking islands: the power of water over our health, our weather and our wars.

Water – the facts

EARTH
From monoculture in Montana to the spreading Gobi desert in China, how our assault on the earth has eroded its thin skin of soil.

Earth – the facts

CHANGE
Recommendations for governments – and addresses of action groups that will keep them honest.

FROM THIS MONTH'S EDITOR

'Planet Earth stands on the cusp of disaster and people should no longer take it for granted that their children and grandchildren will survive in the environmentally degraded world of the 21st century.' So said Britain's Independent newspaper in reporting on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, released at the end of March.

As a father of three children, words like these strike terror into my heart. And so they should. Yet I know full well that the general election which will take place in Britain just after this issue is published will have seen environmental issues pushed to the very margins of political debate, as if they were of minimal concern beside the economy or the War on Terror. And I know that the same was true in the Australian and US elections at the end of last year.

It is hard to escape the sense that we are collectively fi ddling while the whole planet burns. This issue of the NI tries to convey this message by strikingly different means - by gathering the work of some of the world's greatest photographers to show the beauty of the planet we are in the process of destroying. The magazine contains just a selection of images from a major photographic book the NI will be publishing in September called Our Fragile World.

The scale and urgency of the environmental crisis becomes more apparent with every passing day - and it is up to all of us now to put it at the front and centre of political life.

Chris Brazier
for the New Internationalist
Co-operative
chrisb@newint.org

Letters
No more 9/11: it's 11 September; fi ghting insecurity with injustice; four rules for reforming the UN; no more 9/11: it's 12/26.
PLUS: Letter from Lebanon from a country in turmoil since Rafi c Hariri's murder, Reem Haddad remembers the man seen by many as the father of the nation.

Southern Exposure
Rescuing a boat from the fl ood - an everyday drama on the temporary islands of the Brahmaputra, captured by Indian photographer Swapan Nayak.

View from the South
What do Africans think of the torrent of pontifi cating about their continent's woes, from Bob Geldof and Bono to Gordon Brown and Bill Gates? Ike Oguine has been asking around.

Currents
Cultural consequences of climate change in East Africa; human rights and criminal justice in Syria; how poor Hispanics bear the brunt of US military service in Iraq.
PLUS: WordPower – the language of Africa.
PLUS: Speechmarks and Seriously World Bank Presidents past and present.

Worldbeaters
Baring bottoms in scorn at the last absolute monarch south of the Sahara, King Mswati III of Swaziland.

Big Bad World
Great Moral Excuses Through the Ages
- Part 4: Slavery, by Polyp.
PLUS: NI Prize Crossword

FRONT COVER: ORANGUTANS PHOTOGRAPHED IN TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK,
KALIMANTAN, INDONESIA, BY CYRIL RUOSO / STILL PICTURES.
MAGAZINE DESIGN: IAN NIXON.
On-line mag maintained by: Simon Loffler
All monetary values are expressed in US dollars unless otherwise noted.

© Copyright 2005 New Internationalist Publications Ltd. All rights reserved.