Child, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2000

Photograph by Michael Nichols

A child runs through a bleak village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Conservationist J. Michael Fay trekked some 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) across central Africa as part of a yearlong survey of the continent's remaining wild places. Fay designed the route of his Megatransect to skirt towns and villages by as wide a margin as possible, but he occasionally passed through one to survey its impact on surrounding wildlife populations.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Megatransect," October 2000, National Geographic magazine)

Buy a print of this photo.