Eye in the sky: a French photographer sets out to capture the world's fragility as well as its breathtaking beauty.(Yann Arthus-Bertrand's book 'Earth from Above' republished)

Since the day in 1978 when he first photographed--from a hot-air balloon in Kenya--a family of lions as part of a study he and his wife, Anne, were conducting of lion behavior in the Masai Mara, French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has amassed some 300,000 images from high above 80 countries. (Yemen, China and Saudi Arabia are the only nations that have not allowed him to photograph from on high.) The subjects are as familiar--people, landscapes, wildlife--as the perspective is compelling. But they also convey a subtle warning: that our magical earth is fragile, easily lost. That, at least, is Arthus-Bertrand's intention. He set out to create a portrait of the earth that not only reveals its remarkable beauty but also records the impact on it of people and technology. "Flying over the globe, I realize we don't account for much. We're part of the landscape, even if, nowadays, we have the ability to imprint our mark," says …