Beautiful top view photographs Collection

Tea cultivation in Corrientes province, Argentina. The fertility of the red soil and the regular rains of the Corrientes region create the ideal conditions for the cultivation of tea. In an effort to protect the soil against erosion, tea is planted along curved terraces and protected from the wind by hedges. Unlike Asian and African countries, where the young sprouts are handpicked, in Argentina mechanical harvesting is the rule, done mainly with high-clearance tractors that are driven along the straight rows of tea bushes.

A whale swims off the Valdes peninsula, Argentina. After summering in the Arctic, whales return to the southern seas each winter to reproduce. From July to November, whales mate and bear their young along the coasts of the Valdes Peninsula in Argentina. Until the 1950s, this migratory marine mammal was extensively hunted for its meat and the oil extracted from its fat, which brought it to the edge of extinction. Protective measures were adopted after international attention was focused on the problem in 1937. In 1982a moratorium was declared on whale hunting for commercial purposes, and in 1994the southern seas became a whale sanctuary. After decades of protection, 7of the 13whale species, of which only a few thousand remain (10to 60times fewer than in the early 20th century), are still endangered.

Darul Aman Palace, in Kabul, Afghanistan. First built in the 1920s by King Amanullah Khan, the palace has been destroyed (by fire and warfare) and rebuilt many times. Its re-reconstruction is in the planning and fundraising stage right now.

Algae in the Gulf of Morbihan, France. For more than a century, oyster farms have been the privileged sites for the introduction of exotic species. In the 1920s an epidemic decimated Crassostrea angulata, the most widely exploited oyster species in France. A Japanese species, Crassostrea gigas, was then introduced - and, involuntarily along with it, some thirty species of animals and algae that today live in the waters of the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. One example is the Sargasso (Sargassum muticum), a brown algae, seen here in the Gulf of Morbihan, where it has become a part of the local flora.

The Gorges of the Bras de Caverne, island of Reunion, France. Gorges created from volcanic fractures, like the bed of the Bras de Caverne river, make access to the center of the island of R閡nion difficult. Some sites were explored only recently, such as the “Trou de Fer”, a ravine of 820feet (250m) that was discovered in 1989. Because the island’s center was protected from human encroachment, its tropical forests, with giant heather, ferns, and lichens, have been preserved, whereas the forests at low altitude have been converted to agricultural or urban use and have disappeared.