Lalo de Almeida

Lalo de Almeida, for Folha de São Paulo/Panos Pictures

Stray dogs stare at meat hanging in a butcher's shop in Vila da Ressaca, an area previously mined for gold but now almost completely abandoned, Altamira, Pará, Brazil, on 2 September 2013. The area was due to be surveyed by the Canadian mining company Belo Sun for a large open-pit gold mine, which would further impact an area already affected by the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.

Lalo de Almeida is a Brazilian photojournalist and documentary photographer based in São Paulo, Brazil. His work explores the relationship between humans and their environment, with a particular focus on the Amazon rainforest. 

In 2021, de Almeida was named Ibero-American Photographer of the Year by POY Latam. That same year, he received the prestigious Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his ongoing project Amazonian Dystopia, which has documented the destructive impact of human occupation on the Amazon rainforest over the past 15 years. In 2024, de Almeida was honored with the Maria Moors Cabot Gold Medal at Columbia University, New York, for documenting the destructive forces threatening our environment.