Child, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2000Photograph by Michael NicholsA child runs through a bleak village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Conservationist J. Michael Fay trekked some 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) across central Africa as part of a yearlong survey of the continent's remaining wild places. Fay designed the route of his Megatransect to skirt towns and villages by as wide a margin as possible, but he occasionally passed through one to survey its impact on surrounding wildlife populations.