Garth Lenz's Image

As the sun set, the light faded across the vast tar mine. This land’s formerly rich forest was razed to extract the underlying ‘oil sands’ – a shallow layer of sand and clay that contains a dense form of petroleum. Garth captured an aerial view of the desolate landscape, conveying the scale of the destruction.

Creating this type of mine involves the felling of boreal forest –an ecosystem that can store twice as much carbon per hectare as tropical rainforest. Continuing to exploit large oil reserves would be catastrophic for the environment. A growing focus on climate change has led to the abandonment of new oil sands mining projects, though this has left local workers unemployed.