2009 Prix Pictet first prize: Nadav Kander

It is not fresh news that the demand we [humans] are putting on our Earth is out of its depth. The ecosystems we depend on already suffer resource demands beyond their capability. Reports are showing us the results are devastating: international foot riots, desertification and loss of forest cover. With an ever growing population, the governments are trying to stimulate growth, but can our living systems really sustain the future consumption patterns of a further three billion people with 40 years?

Or are we making the transition, as the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen has suggested, to a point where the face of the earth – its soil, its waters, its groves, its hollows – is no longer natural, but bears the terminal scars of man’s intervention.

The Prix Pictet claims to be the world's first art prize dedicated to artists that use to photography to convey crucial messages regarding sustainability. It has a simple goal, and that is to portray crucial messages about social and environmental threats of the forseeable future, using art as its medium to target a wider global audience. Impurity, excess, contamination, absence, control: these werethe aspects of sustainability on the theme of Water covered by photographers nominated for last year’s Prix Pictet. This year the theme was Earth.

This year's first prize went to London based artist Nadav Kander. His work appears regularly in publications such as The Sunday Time Magazine, Another Man and Dazed & Confused. Here are a couple more images from his entry: