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09.2022 America the Beautiful NEW IDEAS FOR PROTECTING LAND, WATER, AND WILDLIFE WATCH ‘AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL’ STREAMING NOW





FURTHER SEPTEMBER 2022 CONTENTS On the Cover Hikers trek to the Citadel in Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, an American treasure that’s been politically contested. The photograph is a com- posite of 44 images taken over a period of 36 hours. STEPHEN WILKES PROOF EXPLORE 19 THE BIG IDEA 8 31 Everest Broke It. The Bears of Summer Scientists Fixed It. AT L A S Polar bears lounging Climbers installed a in soft beds of purple next-gen weather A Turbulent Trip flowers? A photogra- station to withstand Around the World pher reveals the lesser extreme conditions at On the 500th anniver- known life of the ice the top of the world. sary of the first circling bear during the Arctic’s of the globe, its history warm season. BY FREDDIE WILKINSON remains murky in spots. PHOTOGRAPHS BY A R T I FAC T BY MONICA SERRANO, MARTIN GREGUS, JR. On the Trail of SOREN WALLJASPER, Toxic Green Tomes These pretty but poi- PAT R I C I A H E A LY, A N D sonous books may be lurking in your library. EVE CONANT BY JUSTIN BROWER I N N OVATO R ALSO Seeking Solutions in Amazonian Microbes Grass-Cutting Voles Scientist Rosa Vásquez Grenades of the Crusades? Espinoza hopes to find therapeutic organisms in Peru’s Boiling River. BY HICKS WOGAN

F E AT U R E S America in Keepers of Saving History a New Light Community in Yemen As the climate warms, In a politically divided Preservationists try to it’s more important time, altruists bring salvage a rich culture than ever to protect Americans together. as civil war rages on. the nation’s natural wonders—for the sake BY REBECCA LEE BY IONA CRAIG of animals, plants, and people. A big part of SANCHEZ; PHOTOGRAPHS PHOTOGRAPHS BY this effort: expanding how we think about B Y A N D R E A B R U C E . . . . P. 64 M O I S E S S A M A N . . . . P. 100 conservation. Out of Sight A Beach for All BY EMMA MARRIS Forest floors teem In Bangladesh, locals with microscopic and from varied walks of PHOTOGRAPHS BY fantastical creatures. life stroll this long stretch of sand. STEPHEN WILKES BY FERRIS JABR BY NINA STROCHLIC ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHOTOGRAPHS BY PHOTOGRAPHS BY D E N I S E N E S T O R . . . . . . . . P. 36 OLIVER MECKES AND I S M A I L F E R D O U S . . . . . P. 126 N I C O L E O T TAWA . . . . . P. 82

S E P T E M B E R | FROM THE EDITOR SINCE 1888, Meet the New THE MAGAZINE Editor in Chief HAS HAD 11 EDITORS IN CHIEF. B Y NATHAN LUMP P H OTO G R A P H B Y MARK THIESSEN W H E N I WA S A K I D growing up in a associated with an organization that At National Geographic’s small town in Wisconsin, I was a vora- has had such outsize influence on my Washington, D.C., head- cious reader with eclectic tastes. One life. In the coming months, we’ll be quarters, the magazine week I’d get into comets. Then whales. formulating plans for National Geo- archive is full of issues I Herculaneum. Tectonic plates. Senegal. graphic’s future, in our effort to remain remember from my youth, I’d read something that would pique my as essential, relevant, and authorita- including this May 1986 interest, and head to the library to find tive as ever. I’m excited about what we edition with a cover story books from which I could learn more. have ahead for you, and I hope you’ll about the Serengeti. join us on the journey. I was lucky that my grandmother— someone who taught me a lot about the benefit of remaining curious through- out life—gave our family a subscription to National Geographic when I was eight or nine years old. More often than not, the catalyst for my new obsession was an article in the magazine that exposed me to something I hardly knew existed or that I thought I knew but didn’t really understand. As I grew older, it was National Geo- graphic that opened my eyes to the wonder of our world. What I discovered in its pages helped me build a more complete and nuanced picture of our planet—the glory, the challenges, and above all, the thrilling diversity of peo- ple, places, and things. It was also National Geographic that ultimately inspired me to get out there and do my own exploring. Experiencing more of our world not only increased my knowledge; it rein- forced the importance and urgency of preserving and protecting our planet. Although this issue is my first as National Geographic’s editor in chief, our incredibly talented team produced it mostly before my arrival. As a reader, I’d particularly recommend our fasci- nating cover story, “America in a New Light,” which explores the frontiers of American conservation as we look to protect 30 percent of our land and water by 2030. I’m delighted to be able to intro- duce myself here, and honored to be



EDITOR IN CHIEF Nathan Lump STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Becky Hale, Mark Thiessen NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS PHOTO ENGINEER Tom O’Brien SENIOR MANAGEMENT JUNIOR PHOTO ENGINEER Matt Norton BOARD OF DIRECTORS ENGINEERING COORDINATOR Eric Flynn EXECUTIVE EDITOR/HISTORY & CULTURE SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER Alexandra Moreo Rebecca Campbell, Jean M. Case, Joshua W. D’Amaro, Kareem Daniel, Robert H. Langer, Kevin Debra Adams Simmons CARTOGRAPHY J. Maroni, Debra M. O’Connell, Fredrick J. Ryan, Jr., MANAGING EDITOR/MAGAZINES David Brindley Jill Tiefenthaler, Michael L. Ulica SENIOR EDITORS Riley D. Champine, SENIOR EXECUTIVE EDITOR/NEWS & FEATURES Matthew W. Chwastyk, Christine Fellenz NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MEDIA EDITORS Soren Walljasper, Rosemary P. Wardley Indira Lakshmanan SENIOR MAP EDITOR Scott Zillmer EVP & GENERAL MANAGER GIS MANAGER Yanli Gong DIRECTOR/VISUALS & IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES RESEARCH EDITOR Patricia Healy David E. 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PROOF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 242 NO. 3 THE BEARS OF SUMMER PHOTOGRAPHS BY LOOKING MARTIN GREGUS, JR. AT THE EARTH During the short summers of the FROM Canadian Arctic, polar bears take to E V E RY the land—and the land takes on a POSSIBLE vibrant array of colors. ANGLE 8 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Even as a drone hovered above to get this shot, a large male polar bear that photographer Martin Gregus, Jr., calls Scar never stirred in this bed of fire- weed. Gregus says he named many of the bears in hopes it would help people relate to them as individu- als needing protection. SEPTEMBER 2022 9

PROOF Top left: The bears that Gregus calls Betty and Veronica wrestled over this boulder for nearly an hour before he caught them forming the shape of a heart. The two seemed inseparable, often playing and hunting together. Top right: Two large cubs appear to guard their mother while a male passes by, just out of the frame. For Gregus, the image recalls Cerberus, the 10 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

multiheaded dog of Greek mythology. Bottom right: Aurora and her cub, Beans, hunker down as a storm approaches. Thunder and lightning have recently become more frequent in this region as a result of climate change, Gregus says. Every time the sky cracked, the bears started shaking, like dogs hearing fireworks. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 11

PROOF Polar bears spend so much time in the water that many scientists consider them to be marine mammals. In some cases, they’ve been recorded swimming for more than a week straight and clocking over 400 miles. To get underwater images 12 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

like this one of a polar bear moving from melting sea ice onto dry land, Gregus developed camera rigs and techniques that allowed him to get close to the animals without being seen by them. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 13

PROOF In this part of the Arctic, everything’s flat, Gregus says. That means even a small boulder can provide a better view—if a bear hasn’t succumbed to sleep, that is. The bears, including Veronica (shown), often stood on this rock, scouring the area 14 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

for seals to eat or bears to avoid. Gregus hopes to return to this coast, where he sees the bears “thriving and adapting to the environment.” But he knows that in most of their range, polar bears are suffering from the warming temperatures. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 15

PROOF THE BACKSTORY A MONTH AMONG SUMMERING POLAR BEARS SHOWS A SOFTER SIDE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST TERRESTRIAL PREDATOR. “ YO U A LWAYS S E E polar bears on ice female, Wilma, appeared to be so and snow,” says photographer Martin comfortable with Gregus that she’d Gregus, Jr. “But it’s not like they stop nurse her cubs, Pebbles and Bamm- living in the summertime.” Determined Bamm, close enough for him to hear to reveal this less depicted angle on the their purring. Gregus also witnessed bears, he constructed a field station on behaviors he’d rarely seen before, such the back of a small boat and spent 33 as bears grazing on plants and hunting days north of Churchill, Manitoba, in tern chicks by chasing them into the the summers of 2020 and 2021. surf. For now, actions like those may be helping this polar bear population cope The more Gregus studied the bears, with the effects of climate change—but the more he learned of their person- others elsewhere are starving. alities. There was the persistent cub he named Hercules. He lost a leg yet “All of these pictures show bears that managed to survive his first two sum- are fat, healthy, and playful,” Gregus mers. An enormous female, Wanda says. So although from a global per- (below), seemed to be feared by other spective everything may be going wrong bears but spent her days doing yoga- for polar bears, “obviously something’s like stretches in the fireweed. Another going right here.” —JA S O N B I T T E L “We’d look around and say, ‘Where’s Wanda?’ Because if she was there, we didn’t have to worry about any other bears,” says Gregus, of the large but laid-back female.

EXPLORE IN THIS SECTION Poisonous Books Lawn Mowing Voles Amazonian Microbes Spanning the Globe ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 242 NO. 3 Everest Broke It. Scientists Fixed It. IN 2020 EARTH’S HIGHE ST WEATHER STATION WENT DARK. NOW A NEW, IMPROVED VERSION HAS BEEN DEPLOYED AT THE ROOF OF THE WORLD. BY FREDDIE WILKINSON O N A P I C T U R E - P O STC A R D DAY I N 2 0 2 1 , Tenzing Gyal- zen Sherpa crested the Balcony, a windswept rest spot high on Mount Everest’s Southeast Ridge. In front of his crampons, half buried in the hardened snow, were the remains of the world’s highest weather station. When the station was first assembled and bolted to the rock, it looked like an elaborate backyard antenna festooned with bird feeders and weather vanes. In reality it was $30,000 of precision instruments to measure wind, humidity, temperature, solar radi- ation, and barometric pressure. Now the mangled seven-foot-tall mast lay on its side, embedded in ice. Tenzing, a 31-year-old electrician and mountain guide, removed his phone from his down suit and began taking pictures of the scene. The Balcony Station had stopped transmitting on January 20, 2020—seven months after it was installed. It was one of five automatic weather stations placed in May 2019 as part of a partnership between the National PROPELLER ANEMOMETER ILLUSTRATION: TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO, NGM STAFF

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA What the weather stations detected READINGS FROM THE STATION INSTALLED IN 2019 NECPHAINL AMt. Everest 29,032 ft HAVE PROVIDED A TROVE 8,849 m OF INSIGHTS INTO THE Balcony Station METEOROLOGICAL ‘HIDDEN REALM’ OF EVEREST AND 2 mi ASIA 2 km SURROUNDING MOUNTAINS. Mt. Everest Geographic Society; Tribhuvan University in Kath- mandu, Nepal; and the Nepalese government, with funding from Rolex. The project’s co-leaders, climate scientists Tom Matthews and Baker Perry, say the sta- tion readings relayed via satellite have provided a trove of insights into the meteorological “hidden realm” of Everest and the surrounding Hindu Kush Himalaya. Kneeling in the snow next to the wrecked station, Tenzing removed a screwdriver and wrench from his pack and unfastened a small gray Pelican case that was bolted to the mast. In it was a data logger that contained the last information the station had col- lected before succumbing to the extreme conditions. A B O U T T H E T I M E the Balcony Station stopped trans- mitting, the wind sensors below it—at the next high- est station, on the South Col—went off-line as well. “We saw a gust of about 150-odd miles an hour right before, so there’s no wondering what happened,” Matthews says. Then before that technology could be repaired, COVID-19 halted all activity on Ever- est’s south side for 2020. It wasn’t until last year that Tenzing and another Sherpa finally could visit the Everest network for its first official maintenance. At the lower stations they installed new sensors, replaced batteries, and inspected fittings and bolts. Tenzing then proceeded up to the Balcony Station to assess the damage and retrieve its data logger. But he wasn’t done. The team already was plan- ning the mangled equipment’s replacement, an improved weather station, and Tenzing was to survey a new, higher location for it. He continued upward until he reached Bishop Rock, a landmark named for Barry Bishop, a former National Geographic maga- zine editor and member of the first U.S. expedition to summit Everest, in 1963. At 28,904 feet, Bishop Rock is about 131 vertical feet below the summit—and the chosen site for the new station. AGA I N ST T H E W E AT H E R , any moving part will even- tually fail. Ask Keith Garrett. As director of technology at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, Garrett maintains a network of 18 automated weather stations across the White Mountains. Sitting in the trajectory of three major storm tracks and only a hundred miles from the North Atlantic, Mount Washington rou- tinely records winds in excess of 100 miles an hour during more than a hundred days a year. “We’ll see 20 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Among the revelations still emerging from 2019 and 2020 On the 2022 National weather station data: High-altitude snow and ice have been Geographic Society–led vanishing much faster than previously thought. “The summit expedition, Kami Temba of Mount Everest may well be the sunniest place on Earth,” Sherpa (at left) and climate scientist Tom Matthews says—and when that energy Tenzing Gyalzen Sherpa is reflected from or absorbed into the mountain’s surface, it install the new weather causes solid ice to change directly to vapor, producing signifi- station. Its data will cant losses of the ice mass even at air temperatures well below provide information on zero. “There’s more melting going on than we knew at high subjects from melting altitude,” he says, “which affects our estimates of how much glaciers to changing snow there is” and can affect appraisals of glaciers’ sensitiv- crop cycles. ity to temperature change. Station data also produced useful findings for Everest mountaineers: For example, Matthews PHOTO: ARBINDRA KHADKA, discovered that the amount of oxygen available to climbers NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC on the upper slopes varies considerably with the weather. NGM MAPS Ultimately, what the station network tracks will touch the lives S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 21 of 1.9 billion people who rely on the region’s freshwater. —F W

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA temperature sensors ripped clean off,” Garrett says. Bishop Rock at 9 a.m. The wind raked over Everest at “I’m trying to think of something that has not broken.” 45 miles an hour, pushing the windchill down All this made Mount Washington ideal for testing to 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. version two of the Everest weather stations. As weather station setup began, Matthews found Violent winds were a key factor the team had to the fingers on his right hand were wooden with frost- consider. Part of the benefit of putting a weather bite; he could offer no real help. But the Sherpa guides station near Everest’s summit is that it can measure had been preparing for this moment since 2019. Eight the jet stream. But that also means the wind sen- team members each climbed with a 24-volt battery sors have to be able to endure sustained periods of in their down suit, warming it for use in the drill hurricane-force winds. installing the vital anchor bolts. And yet a station’s wind sensors generally are In the biting air, installation took about three hours, among its most vulnerable instruments. Even sturdy an hour longer than the team had hoped. Tenzing devices will require maintenance or new parts, Gar- completed the final wiring to power up the station. rett says, especially in Everest’s harsh conditions. By the time he, Matthews, and their Sherpa partners made it back to the South Col several hours later, By far the most durable wind sensor is a pitot the new station was already sending data. “We have tube anemometer, invented in the 18th century by a good chance of measuring a full winter’s wind,” French engineer Henri Pitot. Widely used in modern Matthews notes. “That would be fascinating.” aviation, it’s the narrow metal tube protruding from the wings and noses of aircraft. It has a big advan- Meanwhile, news had broken that a Chinese team tage of no moving parts and the big disadvantage of had installed its own network of seven weather sta- weighing a lot to carry up a mountain. So, working tions on Everest—on the mountain’s north side, the in collaboration with the National Geographic team, opposite side from the climb Tenzing, Matthews, and Garrett radically stripped down existing pitot tech- Perry led. As for the altitude of the highest station in nology, reducing a 44-pound system to less than five. the Chinese network: It’s reported to be roughly the same elevation as Bishop Rock. Just a stone’s throw After a winter of testing on Mount Washington’s from the summit. summit, the new sensor seemed viable. It only needed to be carried to the roof of the world and installed. Does this mean that there’s a new international race to put weather stations on the world’s highest T H I S PA S T S P R I N G , P E R RY, M AT T H E W S , and Tenzing mountain? Matthews downplays such talk. “I believe returned to Everest. With them were 12 other Sherpas, more information coming from Everest is far better most participants in the original weather station expe- for everyone,” he says. j dition. The team assembled at Base Camp, along with hundreds of recreational mountaineers and guides Freddie Wilkinson is a professional alpinist and mountain guide. congregating for the main 2022 climbing season. The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, funds the work of Explorers, The new station they brought to install on Bishop from mountains and rainforests to the ocean. Learn more about Rock had several upgraded components, including the Perpetual Planet Expeditions at natgeo.com/perpetualplanet. the new ultralight pitot tube wind sensor design. The plan was to remove parts of the destroyed station at 1 the Balcony and assemble the new one at the Bishop Rock site Tenzing had scouted the year before. 2 3 Though the trek to install the station was not with- out risk, it would yield direct benefits. Weather data 4 are essential to a big mountain climb, helping guides plan expeditions and keep clients safe. Then if things 5 go wrong and a climber must be retrieved, provid- 7 ing real-time data to helicopter pilots and rescuers greatly increases the odds of success. Tenzing puts 68 it simply: “We save more climbers’ lives.” On May 9, team members began to arrive at Top of the world tools 9 1. Lightning protection device 2. Wind vane 3. Stainless steel, 10 three-cup anemometer (wind speed) 4. Propeller anemometer (wind speed and direction) 5. Satellite communication device 6. Pitot tube anemometer (wind pressure) 7. Air temperature and relative humidity sensors 8. Net radiometer 9. Solar panels 10. Protective cases housing data logger, barometric pressure sensor, radios, and battery. Instruments in blue are updates or additions to the original 2019 weather station. TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO, NGM STAFF. SOURCE: BAKER PERRY, APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY



E X P L O R E | ARTIFACT ON THE TRAIL F RO M M U R D E R M YS T E R I E S to forensics manuals, OF TOXIC TOMES the books in libraries and collections often contain poison. The word “poison,” that is; poison the subject. TWO CONSERVATORS’ MISSION: TO SHED LIGHT ON THE POISONOUS But in a toxic twist, poison the substance is being PIGMENTS IN 19TH-CENTURY BOOKS found in books, like the lucent green ones below. Their PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE bindings were dyed with a Victorian-era pigment that was known as emerald green—and contained arsenic. In the 1800s, the vivid green pigment in these Melissa Tedone and Rosie Grayburn, conservation books’ bindings was scientists at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, are popular in parts of working to locate and catalog the books, and to raise Europe and the U.S.— public awareness of them. Their effort, the Poison even though arsenic’s Book Project, has uncovered 88 of the arsenic-laced toxicity was known. volumes by using advanced spectroscopic techniques. The detection processes are intentionally careful so they’re not “damaging works of art,” Grayburn says. Most emerald-green-treated books were produced in the 1850s, and thousands still may exist around the world, Tedone and Grayburn say. Chronically handling the poisoned books might make a person mildly sick, they say—but nothing short of devouring one would pose a serious risk. Tedone’s advice: “You don’t need to panic and throw them away.” To help get books identified, the project sent book- marks with safety warnings and images of the green covers to institutions in the United States and 18 other countries. So far, toxic books have turned up in six collections. “Any library that collects mid-19th- century cloth publishers’ bindings is likely to have at least one or two,” Tedone says. —J U ST I N B ROW E R

D I S PATC H E S BREAKTHROUGHS | E X P L O R E FROM THE FRONT LINES Acres of aspens = one colossal tree OF SCIENCE AND INNOVATION At more than 6,500 tons, a grove of quak- ing aspens growing on 106 acres in Utah is, by weight, Earth’s largest known land organism. What look like 47,000 separate trees are in fact genetically identical stems rising from one root system. Deer and cattle eating new aspen shoots threaten to kill this peculiar being—a tree that for millennia has been its own forest. — C R A I G W E L C H ANIMAL BEHAVIOR ARCHAEOLOGY CUTTING THEIR RISKS Grenades hurled in TO K E E P B I R D S O F P R E Y AT B AY, T H E S E F O U R- F O OT E D Crusades? LAWN MOWERS ENGINEER THEIR ECOSYSTEM. In the Near East, Trimming the grass around their homes may ceramic vessels be a chore for many humans, but for Brandt’s in spheroconical voles it’s a matter of life and death, new shapes are com- research shows. The little rodents are found mon artifacts. in grasslands in Mongolia, Russia—and China, Recent chemical where they’re regularly observed trimming analysis suggests tall grasses near the openings of their burrows so they can watch that some were the skies for predators such as shrikes, their chief avian adversary. used as explosive When shrikes are flying around, Brandt’s voles use their teeth grenades during to fell the bunchgrass dotting their home fields. But the rodents the Crusades neither eat the plant nor bring it into their burrows, scientists in 11th- or 12th- observed. As a test, the scientists put nets over the voles’ burrows so century Jerusalem. shrikes couldn’t get close—and the voles stopped cutting the grass. The shrikes seem to have adapted also: They began avoiding Incendiary de- areas where their hunting cover had been mowed by the voles, vices weren’t new. according to the study. Its findings are a reminder of how a single Archaeologists have species, however small, can alter an entire ecosystem. —ANNIE ROTH found evidence of hand grenades in PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT): DIANE COOK AND LEN JENSHEL; ERICH LESSING, ART 12th-century Cairo, RESOURCE, NY; ZHIWEI ZHONG; KLEIN & HUBERT, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY naphtha firepots in ninth-century B.C. Assyria, and a chem- ical fireball used against Alexander the Great in 327 B.C. —ADRIENNE MAYOR

EXPLORE INNOVATOR BY HICKS WOGAN PHOTOGRAPH BY ANA ELISA SOTELO In Amazonian microbes, she seeks solutions to big challenges. Flowing through Peru’s rainforest is a roughly four-mile stretch of water known as the Boiling River. Fed by geothermal springs, it reaches more than 200°F—hot enough to kill animals that slip into its path. The river has long been the stuff of legend, even dismissed by some Peruvians as nonexistent. But to Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, a Lima-born chemical biologist and National Geographic Explorer, the Boiling River is very real. As the creator of MicroAmazon, a multidisciplinary examination of the rainforest at its tini- est, she’s studying the microbes in the river’s extreme environment. “No one has ever explored these organisms,” says David Sherman, head of the Uni- versity of Michigan lab where Vásquez Espinoza is a researcher. The aim is to determine if the microbes “could offer new avenues to developing antibiotics, antifungal agents, or antivirals,” he says. In 2019 Vásquez Espinoza and her collaborators took microbial samples from 19 sites in and along the river. Now they’re making a virtual map of their work featuring video, photography, and data. Vásquez Espinoza hopes it will facilitate further research. Her ultimate goal: “When we think about the Ama- zon rainforest biodiversity, we think beyond what we see with our eyes.” j The National Geographic Society has funded Vásquez Espinoza’s work since 2019. Learn more about its support of Explorers researching our planet’s critical landscapes at natgeo.com/impact.

ATLAS | E X P L O R E A TURBULENT TRIP On the 500th anniversary of the first circling of the globe, the journey remains murky. Only one of five ships completed the expedition—and Ferdinand Magellan wasn’t on it. B Y MONICA SERRANO, SOREN WALLJASPER, PAT R I C I A H E A LY, A N D E V E C O N A N T I N T H E FA L L O F 1 5 2 2 , a leaky ship made 550 tons of spices in two years. The voy- port in Spain with 18 haggard crewmen, age stretched to three, as sailors charted all that survived of some 240 who’d routes by the sun and stars. They sur- manned a bold, mercantile mission. vived with help from Indigenous people Charles I, the young Spanish king, no they met, treating some fairly but others longer was willing to rely on overland cruelly or violently. Forsaking trade for trade routes for the cloves and nutmeg conquest, Magellan attacked an island so coveted in Europe. He commissioned in the Philippines and was killed in the an expedition to find a new route to surf. That left a new captain, Basque Pacific islands rich with spices, and as navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, to captain he hired Ferdinand Magellan, guide the Victoria home to Sanlúcar de a skilled Portuguese sailor who firmly Barrameda (below). The ship returned believed the Earth was round, a theory with a fraction of the trip’s intended not yet proved. In September 1519, five cargo and an unplanned achievement: ships set sail, outfitted to collect nearly proof that the Earth was round. ILLUSTRATION: MATTHEW TWOMBLY

E X P L O R E | ATLAS AROUND THE WORLD The armada was commissioned to find a westward and proselytizing. Magellan would violate the man- route to the Moluccas, or the Spice Islands, and return date, with disastrous and historic results. This first the same way. Leaders were to honor treaty lines, circumnavigation of the globe—a singular feat of approved by the pope, dividing global exploration exploration and science—changed the world forever, rights between Spain and Portugal. They also were sparking globalization, the spread of Christianity, to focus on trade routes and refrain from conquest and abuses of colonization for centuries to come. EUROPE NORTH PORTUGAL DEPART AUG. 10, 1519 AMERICA SPAIN RETURN SEPT. 8, 1522 Seville Sanlúcar de Barrameda A tlan tic Tenerife TROPIC OF CANCER Gulf of Mexico Ocean New Spain Treaty of The leaking ship’s hungry crew Caribbean Tordesillas stops at the Portuguese Cape (SPAIN) Verde Islands for food; 13 men Sea demarcation line row ashore and are arrested FOR SPAIN Cape Verde Is. for violating treaty lines. FOR PORTUGAL (PORTUGAL) Castilla de Oro Gulf of AFRICA Guinea (SPAIN) EQUATOR Foods spoil and supplies SOUTH Zanzibar run low during the Pacific AMERICA Ocean crossing. Lacking (PORTUGAL) fresh fruit or vegetables, Guanabara Bay many sailors die of scurvy. (Rio de Janeiro) Mozambique Pacific (PORTUGAL) TROPIC OF CAPRICORN Ocean Río de Once across the Atlantic, the la Plata crew trades with Indigenous people for fresh provisions PATAGONIA and hunts wildlife, including Cape of penguins and sea lions. Good Hope On land and sea Cape St. Julian Desire Unsuccessful mutiny Much of the arduous journey involves Santa Cruz long stops to make repairs, build trade Strait of Magellan relations, and wait out stormy weather. Cape Horn Armada leader Stopped Magellan Carvalho Sailing Espinosa Elcano Remaining ships San Antonio Magellan returns to dies; a new Santiago stop for winter leader is chosen Spain 1521 1519 1520 sinks months MAR. JAN. SEPT. NOV. JAN. MAR. JULY SEPT. Tenerife Río de St. Julian Santa Cruz Guam Cebu Sanlúcar la Plata de Barrameda Navigating Crossing Homonhon Mactan Guanabara Bay Strait of Pacific Seville Ocean Limasawa Magellan ILLUSTRATIONS: MATTHEW TWOMBLY. SOURCES: ELKANO 500 FOUNDATION; JOSE ELEAZAR R. BERSALES AND GEORGE EMMANUEL R. BORRINAGA, UNIVERSITY OF SAN CARLOS; GUADALUPE FERNÁNDEZ MORENTE, FUNDACIÓN NAO VICTORIA

San Antonio* Trinidad Concepción Victoria Santiago FIVE SHIPS TO ONE Freight (tons): 144 132 108 102 90 Only the Victoria, the arma- da’s second smallest vessel, returned—but the sale of its cargo, 381 sacks of cloves, made the trip profitable. Exceeding the mandate The crew amicably nego- for the voyage—to chart a tiates for provisions with new trade route—Magellan some groups of maritime meddles in local affairs and traders, but clashes with loses his life in battle. others on land and sea. JAPAN ASIA Philippine P acific Sea TROPIC OF CANCER INDIA PHILIPPINE Magellan killed O c e a n Hawaii (PORTUGAL) Goa Bay of ISLANDS Homonhon Guam Arabian Sea Bengal More than three Cebu months at sea Mactan without stopping Palawan Limasawa EQUATOR Balabac Mindanao Malacca Brunei Bay Sarangani (PORTUGAL) Moluccas EQUATOR SUMATRA BORNEO Tidore (Spice Islands) Indian Makassar NEW GUINEA (PORTUGAL) Wetar Timor Coral Victoria risks a new Archipelago O c e a n southwest route in Portuguese waters Sea Tuamotu TROPIC OF CAPRICORN After two years, the expe- dition finds the Moluccas. AUSTRALIA Loaded with spices, its last two ships head for Spain by opposite routes: one east- ward, one westward. Amid headwinds and raging storms, NEW the voyage is slowed and a mast breaks ZEALAND Kerguelen Is. Lacking enough Ships stop to Trinidad heads The crew discovers Expedition crew, Concepción repair leaking east and is a time change of returns to Spain is set aflame hulls captured a full day JULY 1522 SEPT. NOV. JAN. MAR. MAY SEPT. EXPEDITION TOTAL Brunei Balabac Moluccas Cape Seville Bay Sarangani Verde Is. 1,123 DAYS AWAY Mindanao Sanlúcar de Barrameda 37,800 Balabac Sailing around NAUTICAL the tip of Africa MILES Palawan Palawan TRAVELED *SHAPE OF EACH SHIP IS APPROXIMATED. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 33



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER 2022 F EAT U R E S America, Illuminated ...P. 36 Community Keepers... P. 64 Soil Micro-Magic ......... P. 82 Yemen’s History........ P. 100 Bangladeshi Beach ..... P. 126 82 A SINGLE GRAM OF FOREST SOIL CAN CONTAIN AS MANY AS A BILLION BACTERIA, OFTEN THE QUARRY OF ORGANISMS SUCH AS THIS BALLOON-LIKE CILIATE. IMAGE: OLIVER MECKES AND NICOLE OTTAWA, EYE OF SCIENCE

America IN A NEW LIGHT Parks and refuges aren’t enough. Preserving our land, water, and wildlife in a warming climate means practicing conservation everywhere. BY EMMA MARRIS PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEPHEN WILKES ILLUSTRATIONS BY DENISE NESTOR 36

Bears Ears SOUTHEASTERN UTAH This spectacular landscape is a symbol of the risk to some of the country’s unique and irreplaceable places. One president preserved it at the urging of Native Americans who hold it sacred; another tried to open it to drilling and mining. A national monument rich with archaeological sites, it includes the Citadel, once a fortified cliff dwell- ing, now a popular hiking spot. Stephen Wilkes took 2,092 photos over 36 hours and selected 44 for this image, capturing a sunrise, a full moon, and a rare alignment of four planets. “Beyond the sense of awe and beauty,” he says, “there’s a pal- pable sense of history with every step you take.” To create these landscapes, Wilkes found a vantage point and photo- graphed all day and all night. He then chose a number of photos to merge digitally into a composite image to tell a story about a single day.



J Bar L Ranch MELVILLE, MONTANA Near Yellowstone National Park, the ranch aims to raise cattle while also conserving habitat for prong- horn, moose, trumpeter swans, and sage grouse, to name a few. Many fences have been modified to allow wildlife to cross the ranch. Herds are bunched and moved frequently to mimic buffalo, whose tread shaped these grasslands. The bulls in this scene—assembled from 60 photos out of 2,509—graze before moun- tains known as the Crazies, as time passes from daybreak to sunset to starlit night. Wilkes was deeply impressed by the ranch hands. “They’re the real deal,” he says. “Their whole being, their whole life, is connected to this land.”

Shi Shi Beach NORTHWESTERN WASHINGTON An isolated strand in Olympic National Park showcases the need to protect earth and water, as the Makah—whose ancestral land this is—have done for centuries. During treaty negotiations, the chief at the time insisted, “I want the sea. That is my country.” This seashore, Wilkes says, is “spellbinding” and unlike any he’s ever seen. The tide arrives explosively, whirling around sculpted sea stacks, and reveals kelp and sea stars when it recedes. “I was able to capture these dramatic changes in light—in the color in the water and in the actual tide itself.” In merging 46 of 1,626 photos, Wilkes contrasts this dynamic seascape with a woman in a contemplative moment.



Conservation But last year, the federal government proposed works. In the taking 23 species of plants and animals off the past century endangered species list—not because they’ve or so, efforts to recovered, but because they’re now extinct. We save American have to do better. species like the peregrine My friend Karl Wenner shows up to meet me falcon, the wearing scrubs with a canvas jacket thrown on American bison, top. He’s a retired surgeon, but he still spends a and the Pacific few hours a month teaching. He also co-owns gray whale have Lakeside Farms in the Klamath Basin, a dry succeeded. part of southern Oregon that has lost nearly all its wetlands. Without marshes, water runs into Upper Klamath Lake unfiltered and carrying phosphorus-rich volcanic soil, causing algal blooms that harm two federally listed sucker species found nowhere else on Earth. Every summer for decades now, nearly all the juvenile fish have died, leaving an aging population. Wenner’s farm floods its fields in the winter, both to kill weeds and to create waterfowl habi- tat. In the past, I’ve come by to see huge flocks of ducks and swans coasting in to spend the night. We’d post up on a dike with binoculars and watch great vortices of waterfowl swirl down onto the water. His passion for birds is infectious. But when the water was pumped off in the spring, it was so full of phosphorus that it counted as pollution. So this year, with about $350,000 from the U.S. government, Wenner and his co-owners created permanent wetlands AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL Explore how geography drives the forces of nature, shaping and reshaping the land. Streaming now on Disney+.

A yellow-headed blackbird perches above four ducks— clockwise from top, a northern shoveler, canvasback, buffle- head, and northern pintail—nestled amid barley and water willow, which flourish in wetlands. A M E R I C A I N A N E W L I G H T 47

Large public protected areas States—but agreeing on the specif- were the backbone of ics of what will count toward the 30 percent is sure to be contentious. America’s conservation strategy Allowing working lands and waters and city parks to be counted is likely in the 20th century, to upset some conservationists. But any plan to designate almost a third and they are still important. of the country as strictly protected is also almost certain to alarm those who see thoughtful use as compat- on 70 of their 400 acres. The tangle of wetland ible with conservation—a group that includes plants will capture phosphorus-laden sediment many farmers, ranchers, fishers, hunters, and before the farm’s irrigation water is returned to members of tribal nations eager to continue or the lake. In addition, it’s year-round habitat for resume traditional practices. plants, birds, and—soon—baby suckers. “You As it slowly rolls out its 30x30 vision, the Biden can’t go back to before Europeans came to the administration is sending signals that it intends basin,” he says, “but you can make it rhyme.” to define “conserved” expansively, including Despite his enthusiasm, Wenner tells me he can’t efforts outside of parks and refuges. Conserva- sacrifice profit to carve out this space for wildlife. tion can be “something that brings us together as “It has to pencil out,” he says. a country,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland His new wetland is a perfect rectangle, bor- told me. “We have worked very hard to make dered by reeds and willows, with a partially sure that we’re engaging tribal communities, submerged dike—a dotted line of islands for private landowners, folks who both make their geese to nest on. As we drive alongside, Wen- living with the Earth, and folks who use it as a ner tells me about the wildlife he’s seen in the means of recreation.” new marsh, including lots of ducks: buffleheads, Large public protected areas were the back- scaup, shovelers, canvasbacks, mallards. He bone of America’s conservation strategy in spots a flash of color in the reeds. “Oh! The first the 20th century, and they are still important. The yellow-headed blackbirds of the year!” total area of parks and sanctuaries may even There is no single way to do conservation. grow. Several new marine sanctuaries have been Restoring ecosystems, fighting climate change, nominated: Chumash Heritage in California, regulating hunting and fishing, eliminating St. George Unangan Heritage in Alaska, and pollution, helping trees beat deadly diseases, Hudson Canyon in New York among them. On moving plants and animals to cooler habitats, land, advocates for protected areas have called killing introduced predators—all can play a role. for new national monuments, including Castner But the core idea is very straightforward: Range in Texas; 750 square miles of meadows, Plants and animals need somewhere suitable mountains, and old-growth forest in Oregon’s to live. Overharvesting is the main threat in the Cascades; and Spirit Mountain—called Avi Kwa sea; on land and in freshwater, it’s habitat loss. Ame by the Mojave people—in southern Nevada. To work, every other strategy depends on the But monuments and parks are not enough. To existence of a suitable environment. safeguard all our species, all our ecosystems— Seven days after his inauguration, President and to make sure that they have the resources Joe Biden signed an executive order that set and space to adapt as the climate continues to a goal: “conserving at least 30 percent of our warm—we need to do conservation everywhere. lands and waters by 2030.” What counts as “con- On private timberland. On farms. In cities. served,” however, remains to be decided. The “30x30” proposal derives from a push to set a The National similar target for the entire planet, organized Geographic Society, by the Campaign for Nature, a partnership of committed to illuminat- the Wyss Campaign for Nature and the National ing and protecting the Geographic Society. wonder of our world, has funded Explorer Conservation itself is broadly popular—a Stephen Wilkes’s pho- truly bipartisan issue in a deeply divided United tography since 2016. ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY 48 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

CHAPTER ONE APPALACHIAN LACE To connect habitat with corridors so nature can adapt, conservationists are turning to working lands. S E V E N T Y- E I G H T P E RC E N T A bull elk bugles of the protected land in during the United States is in the the rut. West, but most of the vulnerable biodiversity is found “back East,” as we Westerners say. Just one river in the Appalachian Mountains, the Clinch, has 118 native species of fish—almost as many freshwater species as the entire state of California. The South is truly “a piscine rainforest,” as one scientific article puts it. I went back East myself, wanting to see what’s create a diversity of habitat types and mimic being done for species like eels and elk and oys- natural disturbances, although critics dispute ters in a landscape with fewer large national that clear-cutting can ever be considered con- parks and preserves. I found people working to servation. In other areas, they’re selling the protect species in the places where people live carbon credits for the trees they don’t log to and work, so that humans and threatened spe- companies or other institutions looking to off- cies can thrive together. set their emissions. Carbon markets, too, have been criticized as a “dangerous distraction” from The Nature Conservancy, the world’s largest systemic change. In addition, the project man- conservation nonprofit, recently arranged the agers are leasing the hunting and recreational acquisition of 253,000 acres of Appalachian for- rights on much of the property. And on seven est, rich with freshwater habitat, for $130 mil- former coal-mining sites, they plan to install lion. The parcels lie in southwest Virginia and solar farms. on the Kentucky-Tennessee border—an area larger than Shenandoah and Acadia National I’d heard about “mountaintop removal” min- Parks combined. The property’s new owner is a ing but had never seen it up close, so I ask Brad limited partnership managed by the nonprofit Kreps and Greg Meade, two conservancy staffers but backed by “impact investors,” people look- who work on the Cumberland Forest Project, to ing to use their money to make a profit and a take me to the site of a proposed solar farm. On difference. It’s still working land. the way, we drive through hollows so steep and narrow that only one row of small, run-down I’ll admit I was skeptical that land could make houses fits along the creek. Just beyond their enough money to please investors while protect- backyards, the Cumberland Forest property ing species, but I was willing to be convinced. begins. Kreps points out railroad cars used to The conservancy staff managing the project are carry coal, idle for so long that kudzu vines logging some areas, leaving very large buffers have clambered all over them. Coal is fading. around streams. They say small, strategic cuts A M E R I C A I N A N E W L I G H T 49

If you want to do former coal-mining site—that is conservation everywhere, now part of the Cumberland For- est property. then you have to include places Leon Boyd, chairman of the Southwest Virginia Coalfields where people are using Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk the land or sea to make money. Foundation and self-described old country boy, volunteers with the reintroduction project. Boyd shows me some antlers shed this year, fan- Appalachia knows it. The communities here are tastical objects. It astonishes me that the animals poor, and there’s not much work. can produce a set of these anew every year. It The solar farms will create a few jobs, though feels like a magical power. a fraction of those being lost in the coal industry. Boyd takes me, along with two state scientists, Logging supports a few more. The Nature Con- to see the animals in their new habitat. We drive servancy says ATV and hiking trails are already up through trees, past coal-bed methane pumps, encouraging more tourism. The organization then pop out onto another Appalachian mesa, also intentionally structured the purchase so this one a pale green meadow. Silhouetted on the that the land would still be taxed. “People live horizon is a massive bull elk, its heavy antlers in these landscapes,” says Kreps. “If we bought ready to drop. all this land, put a fence around it, and took it “Growing up in this area, we had very little off the tax rolls, we wouldn’t have local support.” wildlife to hunt or even see,” Boyd says. His father Meade, director of the Cumberland Forest was a timber cutter and a coal miner, and Boyd Project, nods. “The bigger you get in scale, the himself is a well driller for the oil and gas indus- more you need to incorporate mixed use.” Set- try. It wasn’t until his boss took him and a few ting aside a postage-stamp park is one thing. But other employees to New Mexico to hunt elk that conserving large areas means that you have obli- he fell in love with the species, with “how they gations to communities that live there. move and travel as a herd over the landscape.”  The mining on the mountaintop is fin- We go walking across the field, tacking to the ished. The accessible coal is gone, along with left of a gang of elk, through a mix of plants the mountaintop itself. What remains is a flat developed by state biologists to feed elk, pol- plain—an incongruous mesa among the pointy linators, and birds. It includes grasses but ridges that characterize this landscape. There’s also wildflowers: black-eyed Susans and other very little to see here. Dirt, small plants, a fire coneflowers. Virginia’s elk project leader, Jackie ring with empty shotgun shells in it. It seems like Rosenberger, points out a slight depression in a an ideal site to install a bunch of solar panels. rocky patch of ground—a killdeer nest, with four What this place does have is a remarkable view sea green, speckled eggs. of ridge after ridge of forested land, receding into The elk aren’t far off, and I can smell them, a misty horizon. The property is a complex set of a strong musky scent. They gaze serenely at discontinuous parcels punctured by inholdings, us, their massive roan bodies held up on long, an Appalachian lace. But it contains a variety of ballet-dancer legs. This population hasn’t been latitudes, altitudes, and microclimates that offer hunted—yet. But the goal, Rosenberger explains, options for the future—and enough continuity is a “huntable population,” and this year will that animals can range freely. Among those ani- see the very first hunt, for just six bulls. Almost mals is one long missing from these woods: elk. 32,000 people have applied. In addition, from Elk were hunted out of the East by the late viewing stands, tourists can see elk fight and 19th century. In the early 2010s, with consider- bugle during the fall rut or tend to their calves able volunteer labor from enthusiastic hunting in the spring. “We are already seeing return vis- organizations, Virginia imported 75 elk from itors, spending money in nearby communities,” Kentucky—a population that itself had been Boyd says. “Each year it keeps getting better. seeded from those in the Rocky Mountains. Vir- That’s how we know it’s working.” ginia officials decided to release the majestic The Nature Conservancy doesn’t want to ungulates on a flattened mountaintop—another manage this land indefinitely. The plan is 50 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

ALASKA YUKON Free to Roam (U.S.) Many animals will adapt to new climate conditions Fairbanks by changing habitats—if they can find a safe route. To see where animals might be able to move, sci- Anchorage entists modeled the continent’s most likely wildlife corridors. The aim: to conserve connections that Wildlife has space to remain and restore flow where it’s been lost. move freely in large natural areas such as Alaska and the Yukon. Protecting specific paths is rarely needed. ROCKY Edmonton Vancouver 2 CANADA Seattle Portland GREAT Montréal 6 Boise Ottawa Boston YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK Toronto MOUNTAINS LA C HIAN Minneapolis M T S. Salt Lake City 3 New York Las Vegas Chicago Philadelphia Washington, D.C. San UNITED S TAT E S Francisco 4 Denver St. Louis A P PA PLAINS Nashville Los Angeles Phoenix Atlanta 1 Dallas The wall on parts Hermosillo Houston New Orleans 5 of the U.S.-Mexico Chihuahua Miami border blocks wildlife crossings, endangering Torreón species such as jaguars, ocelots, and Mexican La Paz Monterrey gray wolves. MEXICO Guadalajara Mexico City Modeled flow 1 3 5 of wildlife In Los Angeles, a wildlife Chicago’s Burnham Wildlife The Florida Wildlife Corridor HIGH overpass being built will be Corridor preserves native is a nearly 18-million-acre concentrated the world’s largest, spanning ecosystems used by patchwork of parks, forests, into corridors 10 highway lanes, to let three million migratory rivers, ranches, and farms that cougars and other animals birds along the city’s connects habitats for about MODERATE safely pass. lakefront. 700 plant and animal species. diffused over broader areas 2 4 6 LOW The Yellowstone to Yukon The Cumberland Forest In Vermont, a statewide impeded by Conservation Initiative Project conserves more network of volunteer crossing cities, agriculture, aims to create a 2,000- than 250,000 acres of guards with flashlights escorts or bodies of water mile-long wildlife corridor private forests, many frogs and salamanders across for elk, grizzlies, and with vital links to roads at nighttime during golden eagles. public forests. spring migrations. MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF; MARTY SCHNURE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER SOURCES: R. TRAVIS BELOTE, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY; USGS

Conserving the Future Protecting Nature The United States has joined more than 90 countries in a pledge Land in just about every par to combat climate change and species extinction by safeguarding categories needing conserv 30 percent of Earth’s land and water by 2030. These maps show areas to its environment that mat where scientists think conservation would offer the greatest benefit far have included diverse vo to people and nature, based on four key environmental goals. safeguarding cultural herita innovative, community-led Unprotected Protected 100% of counties in the contiguous U.S. contain at least Shi Shi New Seatt one of the four priority areas mapped below. Beach congestion Top 30% most important places 8% of the priority regions mapped below without ca for four key conservation goals are currently protected. Seattle Providing clean drinking water 13% of all U.S. land and inland waters are WA S H I N G T O N Flathead officially protected. Reservation Saving wildlife Portland Preserving ecosystem diversity Trapping carbon Other established protected area PROVIDING CLEAN DRINKING WATER SAVING WILDLIFE OREGON Boise Natural landscapes filter rain into drinking water. In Preserving 30 percent of the nation’s most essential IDAHO the lower 48 states, 83 million people rely on forested wildlife habitat could protect 99 percent of its mammals, Lakeside Farms watersheds for over half their drinking water. birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Lower Klamath N.W.R. Reno As Nevada rapidly urbanizes, residents are San Francisco collaborating to protect corridors on public lands. Fresno N E VA DA U CALIFORNIA Las Vegas Bakersfield PRESERVING ECOSYSTEM DIVERSITY TRAPPING CARBON Los Angeles AnahReiivmerside ARIZO Some portion of every native ecosystem needs to be main- Today’s forests—if protected from major disturbances— Long Beach Santa Ana Scott tained to safeguard Earth’s natural processes. Great Plains grass- can absorb nearly all the carbon dioxide produced by lands and eastern woodlands are among the least protected. U.S. passenger cars every year. San Diego Phoenix Chula Vista In Arctic Alaska, the e Imago Initiative supports h more sustainable rural livelihoods and new n models of Indigenous- n led land protection. a s ALASKA Fairbanks Anchorage MONICA SERRANO AND MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF; MARTY SCHNURE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER TOP 30 PERCENT SOURCES: R. TRAVIS BELOTE AND TIM FULLMAN, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY; SETH SPAWN-LEE, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MADISON; ISRIC SOILGRIDS; LINDA HWANG, DATA UNAVAILA TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND; FORESTS TO FAUCETS, U.S. FOREST SERVICE; GLOBAL DEAL FOR NATURE; CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS; USGS

e Close to Home Top 30% most important places THE NATURE EQUITY GAP for four key conservation goals Millions face barriers to experiencing nature and all its benefits, rt of the country falls into at least one of the especially in low-income areas and communities of color. Addressing vation—so every community can make changes Providing clean Preserving environmental injustices is a critical part of conservation. ter. Some of the most successful projects so drinking water ecosystem diversity oices in decision-making and an emphasis on Both ecosystems 3x Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans are three times as ge alongside nature. Several of today’s most and carbon likely as white Americans to live far from natural areas. conservation efforts are highlighted below. le bus lines reduce The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Saving wildlife Trapping carbon 70% The majority of low-income Americans in the contigu- n and offer hikers Tribes in Montana are restoring white- ous United States live in nature-deprived areas. rs access to trailheads. bark pine forests, which hold cultural Top 30 large U.S. cities most in need significance, retain snowpack, and of more equitable access to parks 28m More than one-third of U.S. children lack public green support scores of animal species. space within a 10-minute walk of their home. Y Black communities in Philadelphia MAINE K have campaigned to save urban VT. C sanctuaries such as the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, which O protects an essential tidal marsh and provides access to nature R hikes and bird-watching. M O N TA N A NORTH DAKOTA M I N N E S O TA SOUTH DAKOTA J Bar L MICH. Ranch T A WISCONSIN M N.H. E O R Minneapolis U Boston G N MASS. NEW YORK T A WYOMINGOUN TA I N S MICHIGAN I R.I. Salt Lake City M Detroit N CONN. S Saw Mill River I OWA Chicago Cleveland PENNSYLVANIA New York Des Moines OHIO Philadelphia NEBRASKA N.J. Holterholm Farms PLAINS INDIANA U TA H COLORADO ILLINOIS DEL. Denver UN ED S T A T E S W. VA. C MD. IT H Washington, D.C. Bears Ears IAN National St. Louis VIRGINIA Chesapeake Bay MISSOURI Monument KANSAS Louisville Chesapeake Virginia Beach OKLAHOMA Clinch River Irving Garland KENTUCKY headwaters Great Dismal Arlington Dallas Swamp TEXAS A Cumberland Forest L Greensboro Durham Project A NORTH CAROLINA NA Nashville P tsdale TENNESSEE P Charlotte Albuquerque Memphis A NEW MEXICO ARKANSAS SOUTH Atlanta CAROLINA MISSISSIPPI The carbon-storing Great Dismal Swamp was a refuge for gener- ALABAMA GEORGIA ations of Indigenous and Black people escaping subjugation and El Paso enslavement. Their descendants e advocate establishing a national h Jacksonville heritage area for the greater region. LOUISIANA FLORIDA Austin Houston Couturie Forest New Orleans Orlando n ProjeEctl cPoansose, rwvheiscmh oisrme ostly Latino, Memphis and 72 other cities are Hialeah n improving equitable access to Miami a than 2is50w,o0r0k0inagcrteoscoofnserve Castner parks in part by turning school- yards into neighborhood parks s, and Juneau privatReafnogresftosr, mouatndyoor recreation during nonschool hours. with vaintadl tlionksasfteoguard the desert publiciftoyr’sestosu. rce of drinking water. T AREAS CALCULATED SEPARATELY FOR CONTIGUOUS U.S. AND ALASKA. ABLE OR INCOMPLETE FOR HAWAII AND U.S. TERRITORIES.



City Park NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA The hundred-acre Wisner Tract, a for- mer golf course wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, is being returned to a more natural state with a diverse array of habitat: lagoon, swamp, marsh, live oak forest, and meadowland. It’s a retreat for birds such as egrets and geese, city dwellers from “all walks of life,” and “just about every breed of dog that you could ever imagine,” Wilkes says. Restoring degraded urban spaces and providing equitable access to nature are key goals in conservation’s next phase. Two scissor-lift cranes lofted Wilkes about 60 feet, revealing the skyline and light-striped Superdome, less than five miles away. To create this image, he chose 43 out of 2,012 photos.

to set up permanent provisions that would allow Meade told me the Cumberland Forest Proj- public access as well as restrict development ect would never make enough money to please in the most ecologically valuable parts, and investors without selling credits on carbon mar- then sell the land and distribute the profit to kets. Only a total of about a thousand acres a the investors. year is logged, and much of that is in stands where the most valuable trees already have Using impact investors to protect ecosystems been selectively logged. “Anything marketed is just one way people have attempted to recon- as pulpwood today is more valuable as carbon,” cile conservation with capitalism. I am sympa- he says. thetic to conservationists who are skeptical that the two systems can ever really work together Doing conservation on working lands is much and believe that the pursuit of profit will always easier when there are systems that reward con- lead to overuse of natural resources. But if you servation behavior—whether that’s voluntary want to do conservation everywhere, then markets or government programs. As Wenner you have to find a way to include places where says, it has to pencil out. You have to make con- people are using the land or sea to make money. servation pay better than destruction. CHAPTER TWO FARMERS TO THE BAY Some ecosystems are threatened by what happens upstream, so conserving them must be a watershed-wide effort. NOWHERE IS THE NEED Limiting runoff from farmland for better incentives for protects habitat conservation more evi- for aquatic life, dent than in agriculture, such as oysters. where environmentally damaging practices are still lamentably common. There are 895 million acres of farmland in the United States—nearly 40 percent of the country. Many—maybe most— farmers already see them- selves as stewards of the land but too often find their efforts thwarted. Market pressures, perverse regulatory incen- 200-mile-long estuary. If streams are polluted, tives, and deeply entrenched ways of doing the bay will be too. And dirty, turbid water kills things can keep them from farming in a way that seagrass, which forms a habitat for other species, produces food without sacrificing biodiversity. such as blue crab, striped bass, and white perch. Even turning the entire bay into a protected area Often the biodiversity at risk isn’t even on the could not save it from threats upstream. That’s farms. Consider the Chesapeake Bay. Nitrogen why the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, started and phosphorus from farms in a 64,000-square- in 1967 to “Save the Bay,” as its iconic bumper mile watershed spanning six states flow into the 58 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

stickers urge, has an office as far Smarter investment could north as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. empower farmers to be environmental leaders. They Wetland restoration would help absorb these pollutants. But there are ways to farm that reduce runoff. Crops can be planted without tilling deserve to be well paid for the soil. Cover crops can hold soil preserving America. in place while fields are fallow. And animals can be kept from overgraz- ing and trampling stream banks. I wanted to see a farm that’s an example of need to plow, sow, or harvest, so he rarely uses what’s possible, and the foundation recom- his tractor. He’s also able to sell his organic, mended I pay a visit to Ron Holter, a fifth- grass-fed milk for more because consumers will generation Maryland dairy farmer whose pay more. But it still takes guts. Holter lost farm- Holterholm Farms is one of many such small ing friends when he made the switch. operations west of Baltimore. In the spring of It’s worth noting that while rotational grazing 1995, after an agricultural extension class and “a can address the impacts of cattle on watersheds, lot of prayer,” Holter moved his cattle—which he grass-fed cows still belch methane, a powerful had fed mostly in barns—outside. He divided the greenhouse gas. One study suggested those emis- land, which he had plowed to grow grain to feed sions could be canceled out by carbon seques- the cows, into 68 three-acre paddocks. The cattle tered in permanent pasture. But other researchers are moved daily, so each paddock is grazed for maintain that the ideal future might be one where less than a week a year. This allows the grass to humans drink less milk and eat less beef. rest, giving the roots a chance to grow deep and In 2021, farmers, ranchers, and forest land- strong, which prevents erosion. Cow manure is owners received more than $3.3 billion through all the fertilizer the pasture needs. It certainly U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation looks bucolic, with a herd of Jerseys lounging programs, covering more than 108 million acres. in an undulating pasture of fescue, chicory, and Those are big numbers, but more can be done. white clover. Programs that incentivize harmful practices— In the old days after a rain, he recalls, water grants for waste lagoons at confined animal ran through his field, red with soil. When he feeding operations, for example—could be switched to what he calls “holistic planned graz- phased out. Smarter investment in conservation ing,” the water turned clear. Then, as his pasture for farms and forests could truly empower farm- grew deep, tangled roots and its microbial soil ers to be environmental leaders. These men and community thrived, the water stopped flowing women deserve to be well paid for preserving the altogether. His land now holds three times the places that make America beautiful. water it once did. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation doesn’t Holter plunges in a shovel so I can inspect the just advise and support farmers; it also tries to soil. “Bacteria form microbial glue,” he explains inspire them by bringing them to the bay itself. proudly, as I run my fingers through the moist, “If you don’t know it, you don’t love it,” says Matt caramel-colored dirt, which is indeed gluey— Kowalski, a restoration scientist. “If you don’t and fragrant. “We’ve increased soil organic mat- love it, you won’t try to protect it.” ter to 6 percent from 3 percent,” Holter says. His And so I find myself on an aluminum work- pasture is literally twice as alive as it used to be. boat bobbing above an oyster reef in Chesapeake Farmers like Holter take a leap into the Bay, surrounded by half a dozen farmers wearing unknown when they switch to grazing systems Wrangler jeans and muck boots. We’ve talked like this, often called rotational grazing. The about inputs to the bay from farms. And now Chesapeake Bay Foundation tries to make it eas- we’re talking about cleaning the water on the ier, providing funding, advice, and connections other end. Chris Moore, an ecosystem scientist to programs that defray some costs. Holter has with the foundation, is explaining why he and applied for federal funds to upgrade his system his colleagues have been supporting oyster res- for bringing water to his small pastures. He no toration. Turns out the scrumptious shellfish longer buys seed corn or fertilizer. He doesn’t are also fantastic filters, each cleaning as much A M E R I C A I N A N E W L I G H T 59

as 50 gallons of water a day. “Oysters work bet- crabs, the little baby crabs, over with the oysters ter than an aquarium filter from PetSmart,” he is a really positive sign.” says. There used to be so many oysters in the bay that they could filter the entire volume in a The Chesapeake Oyster Alliance, a group week, consuming nitrogen and phosphorus from of nonprofits, community organizations, and runoff and ejecting the excess as pellets that set- oyster growers and harvesters, is promoting tle to the bottom. But in the 1980s, disease and aquaculture in floating boxes and seeding baby continuous trawling destroyed reefs up to 15 feet oysters on artificial reefs of discarded shells or high constructed over thousands of years. concrete. The goal is 10 billion oysters. These reefs can also protect coastal communities from Moore and the other foundation staff pull up more intense storm surges. It’s climate change a handful of clustered oysters. The farmers gin- adaptation you can eat with a squeeze of lemon. gerly handle the wet, spiky agglomerations. One empty shell has a vivid red beard sponge grow- Together, Moore explains, farmers and oyster ing on it. Another shell has a mud crab tucked growers can, in fact, “Save the Bay.” Someone inside, which decides to pinch me. “When I see shucks a four-inch oyster to show the group. the worms coming up from the soil, I know that Demonstration over, the oyster is up for grabs. I’ve got good soil,” says Jenni Hoover, a farmer No one volunteers, so I seize the opportunity and from Mount Airy, Maryland. “And so seeing the gleefully eat it myself. I jot down a few tasting notes: “marine, mossy, terrestrial, rich soil.” CHAPTER THREE A CREEK IN YONKERS City nature is both an amenity for urbanites and valuable habitat for some species. EVEN MORE THAN FARMS, A great blue heron cities may seem like the catches an opposite of “nature.” They are places for eel near a people—lots of people. fish ladder If you want big protected areas, then encouraging that eels people to live in dense use to swim cities makes sense. We can cluster like oysters, upstream. sparing land for other species. And we can live more lightly, using public transit and heating and cooling apartments instead of houses. But pushing urban density to the limit would The late naturalist E.O. Wilson suggested that the squeeze out parks, gardens, and other green effect, which he called “biophilia,” was biological. spaces—places that clean the air, shade and cool, We evolved with plants and other animals, and and encourage us to exercise. Research indicates we need them to feel psychologically whole. the presence of other species makes us happy. I’ve been nurtured by city parks my whole 60 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C