Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2018 i National Geographic Magazine - UK

CAROL GUZY, 62, has won four Pulitzer Prizes for photography—more than any other photojournalist. Among her peers she’s known as much for her big heart as for the images she makes in places as different as Iraq, Haiti, and New Orleans. We sent Guzy to cover Puerto Rico (above) after Hurricane Maria. I talked with her about that experience and storytelling. Susan Goldberg: I learned as a young reporter writing obituaries that everyone has a story… Carol Guzy: Yes! Everyone has a story, and it’s almost cathartic for people to tell it. But it’s their story—not my story—and it’s amazing to me that people have the courage to open up their lives to the camera. In nearly 40 years as a photographer, what changes have you seen? Now…

A LITTLE-KNOWN LEGACY of Russia’s tumultuous 20th century is a profusion of protected lands, some so remote and restricted that few Russians have ever set foot in them. In the final months before Nicholas II, the last tsar, was forced to abdicate in 1917, he created the country’s first zapovednik, or “strict nature reserve,” near Lake Baikal in Siberia. Nicholas was soon executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries. He never knew that his reserve had succeeded in saving the Barguzin sable, long prized by the imperial family for its fur, which was nicknamed “soft gold.” In the United States the first national parks had been conceived as “pleasuring grounds” for the people. Early Russian conservationists, such as Grigory Kozhevnikov, had different dreams. They wanted to keep Russia’s new reserves from its people,…

Scientists are betting on a new system to alert us to impending earthquakes: birds wearing tiny backpacks. Though no one knows precisely why, animals often act atypically before an earthquake or other disaster. Flocks of birds might migrate off course or be active at unusual times, says Martin Wikelski, an ecologist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and a fellow of the National Geographic Society. He directs a satellite tracking project called International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space. ICARUS will use lightweight electronic tags—affixed as backpack harnesses, leg bands, or even hats—to monitor the activity patterns of tens of thousands of birds, bats, and other creatures for irregularities that suggest an earthquake is imminent. A global network of volunteers has started to tag animals with the devices—Wikelski calls…

PETER BELLERBY WANTED TO MAKE A GLOBE for his father’s 80th birthday. By the time he delivered the gift, two years later, Bellerby had sold his house and car to launch one of the world’s only bespoke globemakers. In the 15th century, artisans etched their maps into brass printing plates in reverse. It’s still delicate work for the London-based Bellerby & Co. team. Each surfboard-shaped map section is hand-painted and stretched—a process known as goring—and many tools must be custom made. “There are no globemaker supply stores,” jokes Bellerby.…

THE RACE FOR THE AGES CAN BE RUN ONLY IN OUR IMAGINATION: USAIN BOLT VS. JESSE OWENS. Bolt is in his 21st-century lane, a smooth, slip-resistant rubber surface spread out for 100 meters, designed to quickly return energy to his legs as he races across it. Then there’s Owens in his pre-World War II lane, an uneven bed of cinders, a soft surface that actually steals energy from his legs as he runs. Bolt, the Jamaican sprinting legend who has eight Olympic gold medals and has held the world records in the men’s 100- and 200-meter sprints for nearly a decade, is wearing lightweight shoes made specifically for running on high-tech surfaces. For his entire competitive life, he has received the finest training the world has ever seen. He jets…

The Spanish word “Latinidad,” which loosely translates as “Latino-ness,” is a term that strives to encompass the shared cultural identity of millions of Latinos who are of different races and national origins and who live in the United States. According to the U.S. census, the terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” represent the 57.4 million who hail from a host of countries south of the U.S. border and in the Caribbean, as well as Spain. Latinos officially became the largest U.S. minority in 2000. Since then their Latinidad has continued to thrive in urban and rural areas.…

THIRTY YEARS AGO, the potentially disruptive impact of heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels and rain forests became front-page news. It had taken a century of accumulating science, and a big shift in perceptions, for that to happen. Indeed, Svante Arrhenius, the pioneering Swedish scientist who in 1896 first estimated the scope of warming from widespread coal burning, mainly foresaw this as a boon, both in agricultural bounty and “more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the Earth.” There were scattered news reports through the decades, including a remarkably clear 1956 article in the New York Times that conveyed how accumulating greenhouse gas emissions from energy production would lead to long-lasting environmental changes. In its closing the article foresaw what’s become the main impediment to…

‘ AS WE CLIMBED, THE VEGETATION KEPT CHANGING: FROM TROPICAL RAIN FOREST TO MOUNTAIN FOREST TO OPEN GRASSLAND.’—Christian Ziegler T MINUS SIX MONTHS PLOTTING THE COURSE I was invited to photograph a group of German geologists who were using very detailed GPS readings to measure how tectonic- plate movement is shifting the Rwenzori Mountains. Months before our departure I bought waterproof clothing and bags to protect my equipment from the wet climate. Then we planned our strategy. The range is on the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At my urging the team decided to travel on the Ugandan side to avoid rebel activity in the DRC. T MINUS TWO WEEKS ESSENTIAL PACKING LIST At the base of Mount Baker, the temperature was in the 80s.…

THEY ARE ON A BOAT DOCK, hands coated with the innards of a yellowfin tuna, when Konini Rongo and Bella Smith learn that they live in one of the world’s largest shark sanctuaries. The girls, both 17, are chopping up scraps next to a row of fishing boats at a port on Rarotonga, the biggest of the 15 Cook Islands. They volunteered to help American marine biologist Jessica Cramp place underwater cameras to spot sharks. But first comes the messy task of making bait, as Cramp—whose work is supported by National Geographic and Rolex—tells them the story of the 484-million-acre protected area. In 2011 Cramp moved to the South Pacific islands, where the reefs teem with sharks, to help launch a campaign for the sanctuary. Eighteen months later it was…

They hang from the cold, stone ceiling of an ancient Maya temple like a bunch of fuzzy gray fruits, staring down at us with eyes that shine golden in the red glow of our headlamps. The toothy, hungry bats have long, nearly transparent bunny-like ears and wrinkled, wolfy faces with a lance-shaped nose leaf—an appendage that bats use for echolocation—on top of their snouts. These mysterious bats just outside the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, in the Yucatán Peninsula, don’t roost in the thousands like some other species, said Rodrigo Medellín, the country’s leading expert on the flying mammals and a professor at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City. “They’re always in these small groupsthey’re very protective of one another.” Medellín swung his butterfly net at one of the six bats,…

18°01'34" N, 65°49'58" W “THE FISHERMEN HERE are suffering,” says Yamary Morales Torres, 41, standing in her yard overlooking the pounding surf on Puerto Rico’s southeastern coast. Setting out before daybreak, Yamary and 14 other fishermen in her neighborhood have to prepare their boats and fishing gear in the dark. “There’s no place to refrigerate the fish we catch,” she adds. “So we need to sell them immediately.” On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria struck land not far from Playa El Negro in Yabucoa, where Yamary and her extended family live. The storm knocked out power to the entire island, a United States territory that is home to 3.3 million citizens. Five months later this neighborhood of only 14 homes—all damaged and flooded by the storm—still had no electricity and…

IF NOT FOR the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the fourth Olympiad might have taken place in Rome, its originally scheduled location. The volcano destroyed large parts of Naples, and funds intended for the 1908 Olympics were diverted to rebuild the city. When Lord Desborough, an ardent British sportsman, learned of the upset plans, he proposed that the games be held in London instead. It was London’s first Olympics, and the first in which national teams competed for points and medals. It was also where the seemingly arbitrary distance of the marathon, 26 miles and 385 yards, was established. Although accounts differ, one popular explanation for the marathon’s odd length is that it resulted from accommodating the British royal family. Runners started in front of Windsor Castle, reportedly so that…

To explain how the enormity of climate change affects our grasp of it, Rice University’s Tim Morton cites a scene from the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back where the Millennium Falcon flies into a “cave” that’s actually a giant worm’s maw. Living with climate change is like that, he says: “Because the worm is ‘everywhere’ in your field of vision, you can’t really tell the difference between it and the asteroid you think you landed on. For a while, you can kid yourself that you’re not inside a gigantic worm—until it starts digesting you.”…

THE CHALLENGE: Renewable energy from the wind and sun is abundant; storing it for future use has been a persistent puzzle. An Australian project uses a giant lithium-ion battery, while one in Nevada employs molten salt. Germany, which aims to run on 80 percent renewable power by 2050, is turning to the infrastructure of the very industry the country aims to replace—coal. The plan: Transform the Prosper-Haniel mine in Bottrop into a battery. This would be among the first underground projects using pumped hydropower, which has proved to be an efficient energy storage technology. But even if clean, it’s expensive—and still in search of funding. 1 On the surface, wind turbines and solar panels generate renewable energy. The coal mine, which is set to close this year, is underneath. 2…

THE MAMMAL LINEAGE of Xenarthra—sloths, anteaters, and armadillos—has inhabited the Western Hemisphere since Paleocene times, some 65 million years ago. Clearly, they’ve been perpetuating their species, but scientists rarely catch them in the act. Brazilian ecologist Nina Attias has. She’s spent years studying three of the 20 species of armadillos. Her doctoral research focused on Euphractus sexcinctus, aka the yellow, or six-banded, armadillo (below), whose courtship rituals she has observed and filmed. In the Pantanal wetlands of Brazil, yellow armadillo amour blooms year-round. When males catch the scent of a female in estrus, they approach, and “she just starts running,” Attias says. “You’ll see a female running like crazy and a bunch of males chasing her.” Once a swift suitor manages to mount the female, “coitus actually happens while they’re…

In 2012 the Cook Islands became one of the world’s 17 shark sanctuaries, which protect a collective 7.5 million square miles of ocean. Its regulations, including those listed at right, attempt to curtail the killing of sharks, estimated at tens of millions annually. Forbidden Fishing Bans vessels operating within the nation’s exclusive economic zone from targeting sharks. Fines Levies a fine of $73,000 to $182,000 on any boat found with shark parts on board. Wire Ban Forbids trace wire, a type of fishing line that often ensnares sharks.…

He lived with his grandparents in a home built on land where his grandfather, a Vietnam War veteran, once picked beets and onions. When Fernandez was 19, he was elected to the city council. On his first day in office, in 2015, he stepped up to the short dais in Wilder City Hall and sat alongside the four other council members. A local reporter noticed something no one else had: There were five Spanish surnames on the council members’ nameplates. Almazan. Rivera. Godina. Garcia. Fernandez. The story soon went national. For the first time ever in Idaho— a state where non-Hispanic whites make up 82 percent of the population—voters had elected an all-Latino city council. Born in 1996 to farmworkers with roots in Mexico, Fernandez grew up hearing people describe…

In cold water and all weather, the ashy storm petrel—a warm-blooded animal that weighs less than an ounce and a half—forages among the waves for tiny fish and ocean invertebrates. Fluttering with dangled legs, its toes skimming the surface, it gives the impression of walking on water, like the biblical Peter. Although storm petrels as a group are among the world’s most abundant and widespread birds, ashies are rare and found only in California waters. They have a distinctive strong musky odor; you can smell them in the fog. They’re most at home on the water, but, like all birds, they need to be on land to lay eggs and raise their young. For this, they prefer undisturbed islands. To escape the attention of predators, they nest underground, in rock…