The world-renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado died Friday in Paris. He was 81 years old. Salgado won global praise for his striking black-and-white photographs depicting the environment and the plight of workers and refugees around the world. He spent decades documenting the Amazon rainforest and Indigenous communities in the region. One of his most celebrated series, taken in 1986, depicted the grueling labor conditions faced by gold mine workers in Brazil. Salgado also went on to document famine in Ethiopia, as well as Ronald Reagan’s failed assassination attempt in 1981. He also co-founded the environmental organization Instituto Terra with his wife. In 2000, Democracy Now! spoke to Sebastião Salgado during an event in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sebastião Salgado: “You have a responsibility to tell the people what is going on. And you must show. You must provoke a debate. You must provoke a discussion, because there is so many injustices. There is so many problems of distribution of wealth. There is so many problems of security. There is so many injustices around that you must show this. And that becomes a way of life.”

Sebastião Salgado is survived by his wife, two sons and two grandchildren. His family said his cause of death was leukemia. Click here to see our interviews over the years with Sebastião Salgado.