From the Amazon to Antarctica, photographer Frans Lanting and writer Chris Eckstrom have spent decades traveling the world on assignment for National Geographic.

Through the magazine’s glossy pages, Lanting and Eckstrom have transported millions of people to some of the most remarkable places on the planet.

But their latest project, called “Bay of Life: From Wind to Whales,” has kept these long-term Santa Cruz residents much closer to home.

“Bay of Life” is a multimedia exploration of Monterey Bay and how the Bay’s health and existence are interconnected with its relationship to the land and its human residents.

“We look at Monterey Bay as a whole, instead of looking at the ocean by itself and the land by itself,” Lanting told The Herald in a recent phone interview.

“Our vision is that sea and land influence each other here in the Monterey Bay in a unique way.”

An exhibition of photos from “Bay of Life” opens at the Monterey Museum of Art Thursday and will run through Aug. 18, while a sister exhibition is already open at Cal State Monterey Bay’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. And May 7, Lanting and Eckstrom will give a presentation at the Sunset Cultural Center in Carmel at 7 p.m., where they will share photos and videos from the project and “tell lots of stories,” said Lanting. Photos from the project are also printed in book form.

Central to the project is the story of how humans have interacted with the Bay.

Even though people have lived in Monterey Bay for thousands of years, Lanting said, “things began to change very dramatically when Anglo-Americans and Spanish-Americans colonized Monterey Bay 250 years ago.”

As recently as 100 years ago, he said, overexploitation stripped Monterey of nearly all its natural resources, including the whales and redwoods.

But “Bay of Life” was also designed to celebrate the recovery of Monterey Bay, said Lanting. “And we explain why that came to be as a result of concerted efforts” by local citizens, activists, scientists, artists and philanthropists banding together with politicians, “who made it all happen.”One of these politicians is former Central Coast Congressman Sam Farr of Carmel, who will be joining Eckstrom and Lanting at the Sunset Center presentation. Farr represented the Monterey Bay area in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2017 and has been a longtime champion of ocean conservation and environmental preservation.

“My feeling is that this is one of the most beautiful places in the world,” Farr told the Herald. Between the diversity of flora and fauna and the “remarkable geological wonder” of the underwater Monterey Canyon, he said, Monterey Bay “is the nirvana of the environment.”

While many would argue that the natural beauty alone is worth protecting, Farr said the Bay’s beauty also holds tremendous economic value for the region.“It’s not just pretty scenery,” he said. “It’s jobs.”

“When you think about all the people that come to the Peninsula,” he said, they’re coming for the wildlife and the scenery. “The scenery is our greatest economic asset,” he said. In addition to tourism and wildlife watching, he said, the environment is still creating countless other jobs in areas like land stewardship and education. “We’re making a lot more money on whale-watching than we ever made on whale-killing,” he said.

While “Bay of Life” may inspire environmental restoration and conservation efforts in other communities, Lanting said its main audience is Central Coast locals. “We really created a project for the people who live and work here,” he said, largely because community engagement is integral to the project.

When the first “Bay of Life” exhibition opened at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History in January 2023, it was accompanied by a number of collaborations with the community, including creating an educational curriculum based on the stories from “Bay of Life” that is available to classrooms in Santa Cruz County. “Bay of Life” is also part of the “One Ride at a Time” initiative by the Santa Cruz METRO, where a portion of proceeds from METRO rides goes to the Bay of Life Fund and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

Lanting said he and Eckstrom are already in talks with the Monterey County Office of Education about educational partnerships and hopes launching the exhibitions in Monterey will spark similar community collaborations.

There are many ways to engage with efforts that make Monterey Bay a better place for everyone, said Lanting, and part of the May 7 presentation will be devoted to highlighting some local partnerships and engagement opportunities.

And while “Bay of Life” is just getting its start in Monterey, Lanting and Eckstrom have already set their sights on their next project: expanding their vision of Monterey Bay’s sea-land connection to the Salinas Valley. Since the waters that drain off the mountains and are gathered by the Salinas River ultimately end up in Monterey Bay, “To us, the Salinas Valley is an essential part of Monterey Bay,” Lanting said.