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Books: “Rainforests: Lifebelt for an Endangered Planet.” Working on an upcoming monograph.

Recent awards: The Prince’s Rainforests Project Award (2009), ILCP Photographer of the Month (February 2010), ABC News Person of the Week (November 2009), Global Vision Award from the Pictures of the Year International Competition (2008), World Press Photo award-winning images (2006, 2007).

Preferred equipment: Canon 5D Mark II (“Smaller cameras are nice,” Beltrá says). Lenses: 24-70mm f/2.8 L, 500mm f/4 L and 24mm f/2.8 TSE. Mac computers. Think Tank roller bags...

The landscapes of Spanish-born photographer Daniel Beltrá help convey the urgent need for environmental conservation in the world’s most ecologically sensitive regions. If you talk to someone as deeply enmeshed in environmental conservation issues as Seattle-based photographer Daniel Beltrá and ask something like “Does global warming exist?”, you might expect an angry, exasperated response. But you’d probably be surprised...

On the cover: On assignment for Greenpeace this spring, Daniel Beltrá shot this image of a boat cutting through crude oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico following the devastating BP oil rig explosion off Louisiana.

Cover photo: © Daniel Beltrá

Seattle photographer Daniel Beltra was named ABC News' Person of the Week in November 2009 for his conservation photography of endangered regions throughout the world. Focusing on the effects of climate change on the world's rainforests in the Amazon Basin, Congo, Borneo and Sumatra, Beltra's images were recently featured as part of the Prince's Rainforests Project (rainforestsos.org), an environmental organization founded by England's Prince Charles, with offices in London, Paris, Berlin and New York City.

In April's Sony World Photography Awards Gala ceremony in Cannes, France, Seattle photographer Daniel Beltra received the Prince's Rainforests Project Award. As the winner of this year's competition, Beltra will spend three months documenting three of the major...

Seattle photographer and Greenpeace freelancer Daniel Beltra recently received Pictures of the Year International's Global Vision Award, plus an Award of Excellence in the Nature Series category for his Greenpeace project, "Rainforest and the Antarctic," which documents the impact of global warming on the biodiverse polar region.

Beltra also took second place in the National Press Photographers Association's Best of Photojournalism 2008 Awards in the Natural Habitat category for his photograph of...

A week's journey into the pristine bear country of the Alaska Peninsula

For most people, their only encounters with grizzly bears happen during trips to the zoo, where the animals are safely behind enclosures. On the Alaska Peninsula, however, the tables are turned. The few human visitors who pass through the remote region might, themselves, be considered curious zoo exhibits by the much larger bear population.One of the best ways to get up close and personal with these giant creatures in their native habitat is to risk becoming lunch by journeying into the peninsula's Katmai National Park and Preserve. Tucked neatly into the southwestern region of the state, Katmai is a prime location for grizzlies...