National Geographic Magazine - UK July 2024

ONE OF THE things I love most about working at National Geographic is the continual learning. We spend our days looking into what is fueling new thinking in a wide variety of fields. It’s our hope that by staying on the leading edge, we in turn will provide you with stories that provoke thought and advance your own knowledge. Globally, Indigenous communities have always produced forward-looking models of innovation and sustainability, though these have often been overlooked. I became more acutely aware of this soon after I joined National Geographic in 2022. We already had plans to publish a story, funded by the National Geographic Society and the Climate Pledge, from photographer Kiliii Yüyan, about the promising ways Indigenous peoples are leading conservation initiatives. But the more I immersed myself,…

“Future Ancestral Technologies: New Myth,” 2021 Based in Glorieta, New Mexico, Luger places an optimistic emphasis on Native peoples’ proven ability to adapt to a changing world. He delves into speculative fiction to present a future “where we’re in right relationship with our environment and our kin.” The work shown here (and on the cover) is part of a series that uses installation, video, and performance art to tell an ongoing narrative about combating societal ills. Among these, according to Luger, are capitalism and colonialism, which manifest as corporeal monsters. Set in an undetermined time, the video shows heroic “monster slayers” bringing water to a barren landscape. The desert reciprocates, providing tools for confronting the evil forces. CANNUPA HANSKA LUGER MANDAN, HIDATSA, ARIKARA, LAKOTA STAR WALLOWINGBULL OJIBWE, ARAPAHO Drawing inspiration…

A South African all-female anti-poaching unit uses mobile tech to enlist volunteers from around the world. For upwards of three million years, we humans and our antecedents have used tools to interface with the natural world around us. The earliest stone tools were discovered in Africa–a continent some of the world’s most iconic wild animal species call home. So it’s relevant and appropriate that electronics company Samsung is working alongside conservationists in South Africa, using technological tools to protect these animals. When South Africa entered the first phase of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, around a million yearly visitors vanished. “Many local people who worked in ecotourism lost their jobs, so there was a much higher risk of informal poaching,” says conservationist and digital marketing expert Peter Stewart. This was especially…

KILIII YÜYAN PP. 22, 42, 66, 120, 130 Based in Seattle and of Hèzhé (Nanai) and Chinese descent, Yüyan is a photographer who focuses on Indigenous land stewardship, which he documents in this issue. An Explorer since 2021, he chronicled Indigenous sovereignty for a 2022 cover story. VICTOR ZEA DÍAZ P. 46 A resident of Cusco, Peru, he reconnects with his Quechuan roots through photography and hip-hop. His projects, such as this month’s story on the Quechua rap scene, show the complexities that define identity. He’s been an Explorer since 2019. YAGAZIE EMEZI P. 96 Emezi, of Igbo and Tamil heritage, is based in Lagos, Nigeria, and has contributed photography to National Geographic and the New York Times. For this issue, the Explorer since 2019 focused on Nigerian creatives rejecting…

■ ON A CLEAR MORNING IN DECEMBER 2020, at the southwestern edge of the Palau archipelago, rangers from the Helen Reef Resource Management Program were starting their day, tidying up around their station and checking spearguns for afternoon fishing, when they heard a motor and soon spotted an unknown vessel. This could only mean trouble. They would have been notified about a legitimate craft coming to Hotsarihie, as Helen Reef is known to the Hatohobei people, the traditional stewards of the area. “That boat was coming in with a lot of goods,” recalled Petra Tkel, a conservation officer—or ranger, as the program staff call themselves—whose mother comes from Hatohobei, an island 40 miles west of the reef. It was part of a small fleet of six motorboats from a Chinese…

SOURCES: GLOBAL FISHING WATCH; ALLEN CORAL ATLAS; MARINE PROTECTION ATLAS, MARINE CONSERVATION INSTITUTE…