After his wife died of an aneurysm at the age of 25, Pedro Martin Ureta set about to plant her a legacy: a forest in the shape of a guitar (see below). His wife, Graciela Yraizoz—who gave him four children—suggested the idea shortly before her sudden death in 1977. While pilots have long marveled at the “guitar forest,” planted from some 7,000 cypress and eucalyptus trees in Argentina’s pampas ecosystem, now NASA has photographed the land art with its Terra satellite.
Argentina’s pampas is a subtropical grassland that is hugely fertile. Today much of the lowland savannah is used for ranching and agriculture. From 2000-2013, Argentina has lost nearly 4.7 million hectares of forest, according to the Global Forest Watch. The vast majority of this loss—an area larger than Denmark—occurred north of the pampas in the country’s Chaco region.
Pedro Martin Ureta, now in his 70s, has never seen his guitar forest from the air himself, as he’s afraid of flying.
Pedro Martin Ureta’s guitar forest art is a tribute to his late wife who died tragically at the age of 25. The forest is over a kilometer long. Image by: NASA.
In this wider view, the forest can still be seen in the center. Image by: NASA.
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