07.

2022

We Are Here
NATIVE NATIONS are reclaiming their LANDS and WAYS OF LIFE.
 FURTHER
C O N T E N T S
15
P R O O F E X P L O R E
THE BIG IDEA
Why We Should
Spare Parasites
Yes, they can be creepy
and gross, and they’re
the pariahs of the
animal world. But the
planet needs them.
6
BY E R I K A E N G E L H AU P T
INNOVATOR
Jessica Nabongo
She traveled to every
country on Earth and
now shares lessons
learned along the way.
BY H E AT H E R
G R E E N WO O D DAV I S
To Know Sharks
Is to Admire Them
By demythologizing
these ocean predators’
lives, a photographer
hopes to turn our
fears into fascination.
ALSO
STO RY A N D
P H OTO G R A P H S BY Egyptian Iconography
THOMAS PESCHAK Toads Go Cannibalistic
J U LY 2 0 2 2
On the Cover
Quannah Rose Chasing-
horse, a model who
advocates for Native sov-
ereignty, stands in front
of West Mitten Butte,
located in a Diné (Navajo)
tribal park in Arizona.
KILIII YÜYAN
30
THROUGH THE LENS
Diving Under
the Pyramids
In Sudan, archaeolo-
gists studying ancient
burial sites gear up
and plunge down.
BY N I C H O L E S O B E C K I
TOOL KIT
Crafted for Catching
See the many tools
that a Texas-based
company uses to
make baseball gloves.
BY C AT H E R I N E
ZU C K E R M A N
ALSO
Edible Invasive Species
Orchids of Madagascar
J U LY | CONTENTS

F E AT U R E S We Are Here Why Cities Are Reviving the

Across the U.S. and Going Wild Road to Rome
Canada, a powerful From bears to coyotes, Italy’s Appian Way will
movement is building crafty critters are offer a cross-country
among Native nations choosing urban life. trek through time.
that are seeking BY CHRISTINE BY NINA STROCHLIC
greater sovereignty. D E L L’A M O R E P H OTO G RA P H S BY
To many Indigenous P H OTO G RA P H S BY A N D R E A F R A Z Z E T TA
peoples, it’s about tak- COREY ARNOLD ..... P. 76 ............................. P. 116
ing control of their
ways of life—their lands, Sinking Fast A black bear
A B OV E :

laws, languages, foods, Residents of Java, visits the back porch of

arts—and getting to
decide their futures.
BY CHARLE S C . MANN
P H OTO G RA P H S BY
K I L I I I Y Ü YA N . . . . . . . . .
Indonesia, grapple with
the encroaching sea.
BY ADI RENALDI
P H OTO G RA P H S BY
P. 36 A J I S T YA W A N . . . . . . . .
a home in Asheville,
North Carolina. Because
the owners attract bears
with food and water, the
animals have lost their
P. 96 fear of humans.
Delivering for E-Commerce

Delivering more e-commerce packages to homes across the

country than anyone else.* And we do it 6, and often 7 days**
a week, so your customers will keep coming back for more.

Get started at usps.com/everywhere

*Based on parcels shipped by businesses to

consumer residential addresses for the FY 2020.
**Specific markets, restrictions apply.
J U LY | FROM THE EDITOR

‘WE ARE HERE’

Protecting
Sacred Land
P H O T O G R A P H B Y K I L I I I Y Ü YA N

says
“ T H E T R E E S A R E P R E C I O U S TO U S ,”
Priscilla Hunter. “We believe our ances-
tors’ spirits are there.”
Hunter is a member of the Coyote
Valley Band of Pomo Indians in North-
ern California. She’s also a founder and
chairwoman of the InterTribal Sinkyone
Wilderness Council (and the person
holding the staff in this photo).
In 1997 the council acquired 3,844
acres of the Sinkyone wilderness,
about 200 miles north of San Fran-
cisco along California’s Lost Coast. It’s
“lost” because scenic Highway 1 avoids
it, cutting inland to dodge the rugged
coastal terrain. One could also say it’s
lost because less than 2 percent of the
original old-growth redwoods there
survived logging decades ago. Now the
10 tribes that formed the consortium
are working to protect and preserve
their sacred land. I asked Hunter how
they are accomplishing that.
“We’re just letting it heal. It takes a
long time to heal an area that has been
cut and cut,” she told me. “People are
saying: ‘What are you guys doing with
it?’ Letting it heal. ‘How are you guys
managing it?’ Letting it heal.”
Their efforts have gained attention.
Last December the Save the Red-
woods League, an established nonprofit
group in the area, gave the council 523
more acres of California coastal forest. example of how Indigenous peoples, in The InterTribal Sinkyone
Wilderness Council in
Designated as Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ—mean- communities across the United States
Northern California pro-
ing “fish run place” in the Sinkyone and Canada, are taking control of their tects ancient redwood
language—the land includes nearly 200 land, laws, and destiny. stands and rainforests.
acres of old-growth redwoods. This month’s cover story, “We Are From left, the members
are: top row, Mariah
“We were really pleased to have a Here,” explores how Native nations Rosales, Crista Ray; middle
place that still has some of the ancient are reclaiming their sovereignty and row, Buffie Schmidt, Mary
trees,” Hunter says. “It’s going to save rebuilding their cultures. Norris, Debra Ramirez;
front, seated, Priscilla
some trees. So the critters will have a Thank you for reading National Hunter, Michelle Downey,
place to be safe—the fish and birds Geographic. Mona Oandasan.
and all that.” David Brindley
The Sinkyone council is just one Interim Editor in Chief
In Motion: Blacktip sharks
circle in the depths of
South Africa’s Aliwal Shoal.
The images and words here
are drawn from Thomas
Peschak’s 2021 book, Wild
Seas, published by National
Geographic and available
wherever books are sold.

6 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
 P R O O F

N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

VO L . 2 4 2 N O. 1

WILD ABOUT
SHARKS

LO O K I N G STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS

AT T H E BY THOMAS PESCHAK
E A RT H
F RO M A lifelong passion for these ocean
E V E RY predators sparked a career in
POSSIBLE conservation photography and
ANGLE a mission to share the love.

J U LY 2 0 2 2 7
P R O O F

Night School: Light shines into the lagoon of Bassas da India, a remote atoll west of Madagascar, revealing a gathering of
juvenile Galápagos sharks. As Peschak descended, the sharks followed him to the coral reef, waltzing in and out of the light.

8 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Visitors From Above: A whale shark vacuums up a patch of plankton just below snorkeling tourists who come from all over
the globe to the Maldives to observe in the wild the world’s largest fish.

J U LY 2 0 2 2 9
P R O O F

Tree of Life: A blacktip reef shark traverses a mangrove forest as the rising tide submerges low-hanging branches. For many
shark species, the mangroves of Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles serve as both nursery and hunting ground. The island hosts

10 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
one of the healthiest inshore shark populations in the Indian Ocean. Also in the Seychelles, St. Joseph Atoll is prized for its
marine biodiversity and seabird colonies. The waters around it were declared a protected area in 2020.

J U LY 2 0 2 2 11
P R O O F

THE BACKSTORY
S H A R K S E L I C I T ST RO N G E M OT I O N S , O F T E N A L A R M O R PA N I C .
T H I S P H OTO G R A P H E R A I M S TO T U R N F E A R I N TO FA S C I N AT I O N .

in the middle
O N A M I S E R A B L E D AY
of winter, I push my then 60-year-
old mother into the icy waters of the
Atlantic. As a nearby great white shark
comes to investigate, my mother faces
it, then disappears under the water for
what feels like an eternity. She returns
to the surface, gasping for breath but
smiling. I suppose the galvanized steel
cage separating her and the shark had
something to do with that.
For as long as I can remember, I have
loved sharks and wanted to share that
passion with everyone, including my
initially reluctant parents. I saw my
first shark when I was 16, off Egypt’s
Sinai Peninsula. A trio of blacktips
weaved among barracuda circling
above a coral reef. I tried to get closer,
finning hard into the open water, but
a fierce current held me to the reef.
When I showed my underwater photo-
graphs of this not-so-close encounter,
explaining that the small specks were
sharks, I was met with the dubious
response: “Of course they are.” From
then on, all I wanted was to get closer
to sharks.
After I made the switch from marine
biologist to photographer, sharks were
my first muses. I have now spent more
than two decades documenting their
complex and somewhat secretive lives.
People often ask me what the most
dangerous part of my job is—it’s not
swimming with sharks. Statistically the
most dangerous things I do are cross-
ing the road, driving my car, and toast-
ing bread. Sharks are not as fearsome
as they’re made out to be, but some are
formidable predators. Encountering
wild sharks in their element is a rare
privilege that I treat with equal parts
respect, humility, and devotion.
It’s National Geographic
SharkFest’s 10th anniversary!
Celebrate the apex predators
during July and August with
programming on the National Geographic
network and streaming on Disney+.

On the Nose: Bold Galápagos sharks investigate Peschak’s camera as he explores coral reefs
inside Bassas da India’s vast lagoon in the Mozambique Channel. The National Geographic
Society has funded Peschak’s storytelling around biodiversity since 2017.
 TA K E T H E R OA D
L E S S T R AV E L E D
O N A T R I P W I T H N AT I O N A L G E O G RA P H I C

Immerse yourself in extraordinary places with National Geographic’s experts and guides
and gain an inside perspective on the world’s wonders. Whether you’re encountering local
cultures in Southeast Asia or exploring America’s canyonlands with a seasoned naturalist,
you’ll enjoy unique experiences and special access to people and places. With itineraries
on every continent and a variety of travel styles—from hiking adventures to private jet
expeditions—there is a trip for every kind of traveler. When you travel with us, you make
a difference, supporting the work of today’s scientists and explorers.

Visit our website or call to learn more about our trips.

N ATG E O E X P E D I T I O N S .C O M | 1 - 8 8 8 -3 51 -3 274
 WET AGE-RELATED MACULAR
DEGENERATION (WET AMD)

KEEP LIVING LIFE

THROUGH YOUR EYES
TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR SIGHT WITH EYLEA

If Wet AMD has impacted your eyes—and how you see life—fight back with EYLEA.

EYLEA can help improve vision— EYLEA helped maintain vision

which may help you read letters improvements for up to 4 years
and see details more clearly with continued treatments in a clinical study

INDICATIONS
EYLEA® (aflibercept) Injection 2 mg (0.05 mL) is a prescription medicine approved for
the treatment of patients with Wet Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), Macular
Edema following Retinal Vein Occlusion (RVO), Diabetic Macular Edema (DME), and
Diabetic Retinopathy (DR).
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION
EYLEA® (aflibercept) Injection is a prescription medicine administered by injection
into the eye. You should not use EYLEA if you have an infection in or around the
eye, eye pain or redness, or known allergies to any of the ingredients in EYLEA,
including aflibercept.
Injections into the eye with EYLEA can result in an infection in the eye and retinal
detachment (separation of retina from back of the eye) can occur. Inflammation in
the eye has been reported with the use of EYLEA.
In some patients, injections with EYLEA may cause a temporary increase in eye
pressure within 1 hour of the injection. Sustained increases in eye pressure have
been reported with repeated injections, and your doctor may monitor this after
each injection.
There is a potential but rare risk of serious and sometimes fatal side effects,
related to blood clots, leading to heart attack or stroke in patients receiving EYLEA.
 FDA-APPROVED treatment in its class
for patients with Wet AMD*

The most common side effects reported in patients receiving EYLEA were increased
redness in the eye, eye pain, cataract, vitreous (gel-like substance) detachment,
vitreous floaters, moving spots in the field of vision, and increased pressure in the eye.
You may experience temporary visual changes after an EYLEA injection and
associated eye exams; do not drive or use machinery until your vision
recovers sufficiently.
Contact your doctor right away if you think you might be experiencing any side
effects, including eye pain or redness, light sensitivity, or blurring of vision, after
an injection.
For additional safety information, please talk to your doctor and see the full
Prescribing Information for EYLEA.
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the
FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Please see the Consumer Brief Summary on the adjacent page.
*IQVIA Medical claims: Number of injections administered Q1 - Q4 2020; Data on File.
04/2022
ASK A RETINA SPECIALIST ABOUT EYLEA VISIT EYLEA.COM EYL.22.04.0014
 (Pronounced: eye•lee•ah)

Consumer Brief Summary The most common side effects include

This summary contains risk and safety information for patients about EYLEA. It
does not include all the information about EYLEA and does not take the place
of talking to your eye doctor about your medical condition or treatment.
What is EYLEA?
EYLEA is a prescription medicine that works by blocking vascular endothelial
growth factor (VEGF). VEGF can cause fluid to leak into the macula (the
light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye responsible for sharp central vision).
Blocking VEGF helps reduce fluid from leaking into the macula.
What is EYLEA used for?
EYLEA is indicated for the treatment of patients with:
• Neovascular (Wet) Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)
• Macular Edema Following Retinal Vein Occlusion (RVO)
• Diabetic Macular Edema (DME)
• Diabetic Retinopathy (DR)
How is EYLEA given?
EYLEA is an injection administered by your eye doctor into the eye. Depending
on your condition, EYLEA injections are given on different schedules. Consult
with your eye doctor to confirm which EYLEA schedule is appropriate for you.
Who should not use EYLEA?
Do not use EYLEA if you have an infection in or around the eye, eye pain or
redness, inflammation in the eye, or are allergic to aflibercept and/or any other
ingredients in EYLEA.
What is the most important information I should know about EYLEA?
• EYLEA must only be administered by a qualified eye doctor. Injection
into the eye with EYLEA can result in an infection in the eye and retinal
detachment (separation of retina from back of the eye) can occur.
Inflammation in the eye has been reported with the use of EYLEA. If
your eye becomes red, sensitive to light, painful, or develops a change
in vision, seek immediate care from an eye doctor
• In some patients, injections with EYLEA may cause a temporary
increase in eye pressure within 1 hour of the injection. Sustained
increases in eye pressure have been reported with repeated injections,
and your eye doctor may monitor this after each injection
• There is a potential but rare risk of serious and sometimes fatal side effects
related to blood clots, leading to heart attack or stroke in patients
receiving EYLEA
• Serious side effects related to the injection procedure with EYLEA
are rare but can occur including infection inside the eye and retinal
detachment
• You may experience temporary visual changes after an EYLEA injection
and associated eye exams; do not drive or use machinery until your
vision recovers sufficiently
• Because EYLEA is composed of large molecules, your body may react to
it; therefore, there is a potential for an immune response (allergy-like)
in patients treated with EYLEA
What are possible side effects of EYLEA?
EYLEA can cause serious side effects, including
• See important safety information listed under “What is the
most important information I should know about EYLEA?”
• Increased redness in the eye
• Eye pain
• Cataract
• Vitreous (gel-like substance) detachment
• Vitreous floaters
• Moving spots in the field of vision
• Increased pressure in the eye
There are other possible side effects of EYLEA. For more information, ask your
eye doctor.
It is important that you contact your doctor right away if you think
you might be experiencing any side effects, including eye pain or
redness, light sensitivity, or blurring of vision, after an injection.
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription
drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call
1-800-FDA-1088.
What should I tell my eye doctor before receiving EYLEA?
• Tell your eye doctor if you have any medical conditions
• Tell your eye doctor if you are pregnant or are planning to become
pregnant. It is not known if EYLEA may harm your unborn baby
• Tell your eye doctor if you are breastfeeding. It is not known if EYLEA
may harm your baby. You and your eye doctor should decide whether
you should be treated with EYLEA or breastfeed, but you should not
do both
How is EYLEA supplied?
EYLEA is supplied in a clear, colorless to pale yellow solution. It is provided in a
pre-filled glass syringe or glass vial containing the amount of product required
for a single injection into the eye, which is 0.05 mL (or 2 mg of the medicine
product).
Where can I learn more about EYLEA?
For a more comprehensive review of EYLEA safety and risk information,
talk to your health care provider and see the full Prescribing Information at
EYLEA.com.
Manufactured by:
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
777 Old Saw Mill River Road
Tarrytown, NY 10591
EYLEA is a registered trademark of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
© 2020, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. All rights reserved.
Issue Date: November 2020
Initial U.S. Approval: 2011
based on the August 2019 EYLEA® (aflibercept) injection full Prescribing information.
11/2020
EYL.20.06.0003
 IN THIS SECTION

Round-the-World Travel

E X P L O R E Making Baseball Gloves

Plants for the Picking
Pyramids From Below

I L L U M I N AT I N G T H E M Y S T E R I E S — A N D W O N D E R S — A L L A R O U N D U S E V E R Y D AY

N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C VO L . 2 4 2 N O. 1

Why We Should
Spare Parasites
S O M E A R E H A R M F U L , I N VA S I V E , C R E E P Y— B U T P A R A S I T E S B A L A N C E
E C O S Y S T E M S , A N D K I L L I N G T H E M O F F C O U L D D O O M T H E P L A N E T.
E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA

at the University of Washington. “I just totally fell

in love with them—I like to say that they got under
my skin.” Wood has since become a leader in a new
conservation movement that aims to save the world’s
uncharismatic minifauna.
Nearly half of all known animals are parasites,
Wood says. One study projects that a tenth of them
may be doomed to extinction in the next 50 years
because of climate change, loss of their hosts, and
deliberate attempts at eradication; other estimates
suggest that up to a third could disappear. Right now,
though, it seems few people care—or even notice. Of
the more than 40,000 species flagged as threatened Parasites, by
on the IUCN Red List, only a handful are parasites. the Numbers
Parasites are the pariahs of the animal world
because at some point in their lives, they live in or
When we humans gaze across an
on a host and take something from that host. But
African savanna or Australian coral
most parasites have evolved not to kill their hosts,
reef, we notice lions and zebras
and not all of them even cause noticeable harm.
and colorful fish. But those animals
What’s more, only a small percentage affect humans.
are the homes for most of the life
Scientists warn of dire consequences if we con-
hidden in front of us.
tinue to ignore the plight of parasites. Not only are
All told, 40 percent of known
some of them useful to humans (such as medicinal
animals are parasites—and that’s
leeches, still employed in some surgeries), but we’re
just the species that have been
also starting to understand that they play crucial
described. Scientists think that’s
roles in ecosystems, keeping some populations in
only about 10 percent of all
check while helping feed others.
the parasites out there, leaving
Some experts say there’s an aesthetic argument for
potentially millions more to
saving them too. If you get past the “ick” factor and
be discovered. In terms of species
get to know them, you may find parasites’ pluckiness
diversity, parasitic wasps alone
eerily charming. They’ve evolved ingenious means
probably outnumber any other
of survival, from the crustacean that becomes a fish’s
group of animals, even beetles.
tongue to the jewel wasp that controls the minds of
Most species, it turns out, are
cockroaches (see page 18).
parasitized by multiple others. Take
“People think of parasites as gross and slimy and
humans: Despite our efforts to be
flaccid and wiggling, and that’s true some of the
inhospitable, we’re excellent hosts.
time,” Wood says. “But if you look at them under the
More than a hundred different
microscope, they are just staggeringly beautiful.”
parasites have evolved to live in
or on us, many now dependent on
as a way of life again and
PA R A S I T I S M H A S E VO LV E D
us for their species’ existence.
again, over billions of years, from the smallest, sim-
So when you look at a plant or
plest microbes to the most complex vertebrates. There
animal, think about all the parasites
are parasitic plants, parasitic birds, a bewildering
that might be living on or inside,
array of parasitic worms and insects, and even a
silent and unseen. After all, there’s a
parasitic mammal—the vampire bat, which survives
reason they’re so common. “Nature
by drinking the blood of cows and other mammals.
abhors a vacuum,” says Chelsea
Of the 42 major branches on the tree of life, called
Wood, a parasite ecologist. “If
phyla, 31 are mostly parasites.
there’s an opportunity, someone’s
Yet we’ve barely begun to identify all the parasites,
going to evolve to fill it.” — E E
much less learn their lifestyles or monitor their pop-
ulations. “That’s just not something that we’ve ever
really prioritized,” says Skylar Hopkins, an ecologist
at North Carolina State University. So a few years
ago, Hopkins pulled together a group of scientists
interested in parasite conservation, and they started
sharing what they knew. In 2020 they published
the first ever global plan for saving parasites in the
journal Biological Conservation.
One of the problems is what’s called the paradox
of co-extinction. Since parasites by definition rely on

16 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
ILLUSTRATIONS: ENZO PÉRÈS-LABOURDETTE J U LY 2 0 2 2 17
E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA
other species, they’re particularly vulnerable. Take,
for example, the endangered pygmy hog-sucking
louse. It lives only on another endangered species,
the pygmy hog, which is disappearing from the grass-
lands it inhabits in the foothills of the Himalaya.
Then there’s the California condor louse, which
became the unofficial poster child for parasite con-
servation through an ironic twist of fate. In the 1970s,
desperate to save the California condor, biologists
began raising the birds in captivity. Part of the pro-
tocol was to delouse every bird with pesticides, on
the assumption that parasites were bad for condors,
though it’s not clear they actually were. The Califor-
nia condor louse hasn’t been seen since.
Similarly, the New England medicinal leech
hasn’t been sighted for more than a decade, and
overfishing has probably done in the marine fluke
Stichocotyle nephropis, which depended on rays and
skates. Untold other parasitic worms, protozoans,
and insects are presumed to have gone down with
the ship, so to speak, as their hosts died out.
WHILE THE DEMISE OF life’s hangers-on might seem
like no big deal, or even something to strive for, ecolo-
gists caution that wiping them all out would probably
spell planetary doom. Without parasites keeping
them in check, populations of some animals would
explode, just as invasive species do when they’re
transplanted away from natural predators. Other
species likely would crash in the ensuing melee.
Big, charismatic predators would lose out too.
Many parasites have evolved to move into their next
host by manipulating the host they’re in, which
tends to drive that host into a predator’s mouth.
Nematomorph worms, for example, mature inside
crickets but then need to get to water to mate. So they
influence the crickets’ brains, driving the insects to
jump into streams, where they become an important
food source for trout. Similar phenomena feed birds,
cats, and other predators the world over.
Even human health wouldn’t entirely benefit from
wiping out parasites. In countries such as the United
States, where we have eliminated most intestinal
parasites, we have autoimmune diseases that are
virtually unheard-of in places where everyone still
has those parasites. According to one line of thinking,
the human immune system evolved with a coterie
of worms and protozoan parasites, and when we
killed them off, our immune systems began attacking
A stroll and a meal
For a classic example of ghoulish parasitism, consider the
jewel wasp Ampulex compressa. The female of the spe-
cies has a devious strategy: She will sting a cockroach in
the head, then lead the “zombie” roach to a burrow by
its antenna, like a dog on a leash. There, the wasp lays
an egg on the roach and buries them together. The
roach becomes her larva’s first meal. — E E
PA R A S I T I S M H A S E V O LV E D
A S A WAY O F L I F E A G A I N A N D
AGAIN, OVER BILLIONS OF
Y E A R S , F RO M T H E S M A L L E S T,
SIMPLEST MICROBES TO THE
MOST COMPLEX VERTEBRATES.
ourselves. Some people with Crohn’s disease have
even purposely infected themselves with intestinal
worms to try to restore their guts’ ecological balance,
with mixed results.
That said, scientists aren’t eager to save all para-
sites. The Guinea worm, for instance, gets a hard pass
from even hard-core conservationists. It grows to
adulthood inside a person’s abdomen, often reaching
several feet long, then travels to the leg and emerges
painfully through the foot. Former president Jimmy
Carter’s foundation has set out to drive the worm to
extinction, and few will miss it.
If anyone would want to get rid of all parasites,
you’d think it would be Bobbi Pritt. As medical direc-
tor for the Mayo Clinic’s human parasitology lab, Pritt
identifies parasites found all over the country and in
every body part. In a typical day she may work with
blood carrying malaria parasites, brain tissue full of
Toxoplasma gondii, or toe scrapings with sand fleas
picked up by walking barefoot on the beach.
Yet even Pritt has a soft spot for parasites. She
writes a blog called Creepy Dreadful Wonderful
Parasites and spends weekends studying the ticks
outside her vacation cabin. As a physician, she favors
eradicating parasites in places where they cause
disease and suffering. “But as a biologist,” she says,
“the idea of actually going out and purposefully
trying to make something extinct just doesn’t sit
well with me.”
Ultimately, the goal of conserving parasites isn’t
to make everyone love them. It’s just to call a détente
in our war against all of them, because there’s still
so much we don’t understand. j
Erika Engelhaupt is a science writer and editor whose work has
been published in print and online by National Geographic, NPR,
and other media. Her book Gory Details: Adventures From the
Dark Side of Science was published by National Geographic Books.
PHOTO: EMANUELE BIGGI,
NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY
E X P L O R E | BREAKTHROUGHS

Finny Icons of Ancient Egypt

Two denizens of the Nile—the catfish
(right) and the tilapia—were among the
D I S PAT C H E S animals ancient Egyptians mythol-
ogized. Magic, regeneration,
FROM THE FRONT LINES and fertility were cred-
OF SCIENCE ited to these fish; amulets
A N D I N N OVAT I O N depicting them were said
to have powers, including pro-
tection from drowning. — E L I S A C A S T E L

PLANT SCIENCE

Pollinators
see more
than yellow
Sunflowers are
lovely to behold—
and doubly so for
pollinators. They
see the flowers
in the ultraviolet
spectrum, which
reveals a colored
bull’s-eye at the
center of the bloom.
It was long thought
that sunflowers’
INVASIVE SPECIES
bull’s-eye pattern
evolved only to
TOO MANY MOUTHS? draw pollinators,
but new research
A F T E R OV E R P O P U L AT I N G A N A D O P T E D H O M E L A N D ,
T H I S TOA D I S C A N N I BA L I Z I N G I T S OW N S P E C I E S . suggests otherwise:
Molecules that make
Known as the marine toad, giant toad, and cane toad, Rhinella up the bull’s-eyes
marina feasts on insects in its native South America. So in 1935,
also help the plants
101 toads were brought to Australia in hopes of ridding sugarcane
plantations of beetles. The poisonous amphibians did little to
endure stresses
curb the beetle population and quickly became pests, multiplying such as drought
rapidly and taking a toll on native species. and extreme
Today the more than 200 million cane toads in Australia are temperatures. —A R
far too many for anyone’s liking—including the toads’, whose
intraspecies competition for resources has evolved a gruesome
new behavior: cannibalism.
In a study published in the journal Ecology and Evolution,
scientists found that after cane toad tadpoles in Australia detect
a toxin in eggs of their own species—the same toxin that makes the
toads poisonous to predators—the tadpoles become ravenous and
eat the eggs and hatchlings. This behavior is virtually unknown in
cane toads in their native range; it’s thought to have arisen recently
among those in Australia as a way to reduce competition. “They’re
definitely their own worst enemy in Australia,” says study co-
author Michael Crossland of the University of Sydney. —A N N I E ROT H

PHOTOS (FROM TOP): BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; MICHAEL CROSSLAND; MARCO TODESCO, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
“In recent years, a group of international designers and artists has
rediscovered the innate modernity of Italian blown glass, turning
to Murano as inspiration…” — New York Times, 2020

The brightly-painted
fisherman houses on
Burano Island in Venice
are the inspiration
behind The Murano Genuine Murano Necklace
Rainbow Necklace.
$
only 39!
PLUS FREE Bracelet!
a $99 value!
Raffinato ™

—Italy

Send Her Over The Rainbow

700-year old legendary art form for the price of your dreams.
N ow I know how that little farm girl from Kansas felt
when she went over the rainbow and awoke in a land of
spectacular color. Look what I found in the land of ahhs!
Approaching Burano Island off of northern Venice was like being
swept away in a dream. Known for its brightly-painted fisherman
houses that line the canals, I was greeted with every color of the
rainbow. Since before the Venetian Republic, Burano was home
to fishermen and legend says that the houses were painted in
bright hues so they could see their way home when fog blanketed
the lagoon.
Inspiration struck. I wanted to capture this historical beauty in
the centuries old art form of Murano. Still regarded as being the
finest form craftsmanship in the world, Murano has evolved into
modern day fashion statements.
So I hopped on a vaporetto for a forty minute ride to Venice
and sought out the impeccable talents of one of Venice’s finest
Murano artisans. They’ve captured the vibrant colors of the
iconic fisherman houses in the perfect hand-formed beads of
The Rainbow Murano Necklace. To own a piece of authentic
Murano is to own a piece of fine art steeped in history. Each and
every piece is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.
I want to make it easy for you to send her over the rainbow.
That’s why for a limited time you can treat her to the The
Murano Rainbow Necklace for only $39. And, to help you
double down on romance, I’ll throw in the matching bracelet
absolutely FREE! As one of the largest importers of handcrafted
Italian jewelry, we have a way of making dreams that you dare to
dream come true.
Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Enjoy the
Murano Rainbow Necklace for 30 days. If it doesn’t pass with
flying colors, send it back for a full refund of the item price. You
can even keep the bracelet for your trouble.
Limited Reserves. You could easily pay $300 or more for a
Murano glass bead necklace, but at $39 PLUS a FREE bracelet,
these authentic handcrafted pieces won’t last. For a remarkable
deal, there’s no place like Raffinato.
Jewelry Specifications:
• Made in Italy of genuine Murano
• Necklace: 23”L; Bracelet: 7”L; Lobster clasps
Murano Rainbow Necklace $199 $39* + S&P
Receive the FREE matching bracelet with your purchase
of the Necklace — a $99 value!
*Special price only for customers using the offer code.
1-888-444-5949
Your Insider Offer Code: RFW176-01

Raffinato, 14101 Southcross Drive W., Ste 155, Dept. RFW176-01, Burnsville, MN 55337 www.raffinatoitaly.com

™
E X P L O R E

INNOVATOR
JESSICA NABONGO
B Y H E AT H E R G R E E N WO O D DAV I S P H O T O G R A P H B Y E M I LY B E R L

Visiting every nation

on Earth made her a
proponent of ethical,
sustainable travel.
Jessica Nabongo never set out to be
an advocate. But after visiting all 195
countries and 10 territories, that is
exactly what the 38-year-old Detroit
native has become. Author of the new
National Geographic book The Catch
Me If You Can, Nabongo was inspired
in part by her well-traveled parents
when in 2017 she decided to attempt
a daunting feat: being the first Black
woman to document having gone to
every country around the globe.
By 2019, the former United Nations
consultant and boutique travel agency
owner had completed that mission. But
seeing firsthand some of the problems
facing the planet, such as discrimina-
tion and the way poorer countries have
been left to handle the world’s waste,
prompted a new mission—to advocate
for ethical and sustainable travels.
Today’s travelers should embrace
humility, she says, instead of going to
faraway places to confirm what they
think they already know. Developing
an inclusive and curious mindset
deepens journeys for individuals and
encourages support of the diversity
that makes travel so rewarding in the
first place. “We all need love. We all
need community. No matter who you
are, where you’re from, those things
don’t change,” she says. Travel helps
show us that “we’re more similar than
we are different.” j

Nabongo’s book, The Catch Me If You Can,

is available wherever books are sold.
 H I S F U T U R E C A N B E YO U R L E GAC Y

You can leave the world better than you

found it. When you leave a gift to the
National Geographic Society in your will
or trust, or by beneficiary designation,
you can protect critical animal species
for generations to come.

Need a will?

We believe all people deserve access to

estate planning tools. That’s why we are
making this free to our supporters.

Claim your account today at:

natgeo.org/givingdocs

P H OTO : J O E L SA RTO R E

N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C P H OTO A R K

C R E AT E A L E GAC Y O F YO U R OW N

Yes! Please send me information on leaving a gift to the Mail to: National Geographic Society
National Geographic Society. Office of Planned Giving
1145 17th Street, NW
The National Geographic Society has already been included Washington, DC 20036-4688
in my estate plans.
Contact: legacy@ngs.org
I would like to speak to someone about making a gift. (800) 226-4438
Please call me. natgeo.org/give/future-gifts

NAME

ADDRESS

PHONE EMAIL

The National Geographic Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Our federal tax ID number is 53-0193519. 2 2 P GA D 07
E X P L O R E | TOOL KIT

5
4

CRAFTED FOR CATCHING

24 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
6

10

11

1. Leather laces
Used to hold the glove
together, they come in dif-
ferent widths and lengths.
2. Cutting die
There are over 20 dies for
various glove parts. The
one shown forms the palm.
3. Wooden last
This helps shape the fin-
gers. The metal tool inserts
thumb and heel pads.
4. Cosmoline
7 A waxlike petroleum
product, it glues the palm
to the leather liner.
5. Hole punch
Some gloves require this
method of making open-
ings for the laces.
6. Lacing needle
A clip on one end holds
and guides the leather
lace through holes. Also
pictured: tools for posi-
tioning the thumb and
9
pinkie adjustment loops.
7. Partially laced glove
Lacing one glove takes
8 about 45 minutes.
8. Chopping mallet
Workers wield this to slice
up material left over from
making inserts to reinforce
the thumb and pinkie.
9. Leather gauge
Before glove construction
PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE begins, the leather’s thick-
ness must be measured.
10. More mallets
national pastime, then the Nokona
I F B A S E B A L L I S A M E R I C A’ S Rawhide and steel mallets
glove factory is a national treasure. The family-run leather-goods create crisp folds in the
company in Texas has been handcrafting baseball gloves since 1934. leather. A thicker glove
“We were making purses and wallets,” says Executive Vice President mallet helps mold the final
Rob Storey, “but Granddad said during the Great Depression if shape of the product.
11. Bobbins of thread
you wanted to sell a wallet for a dollar, you had to put a dollar in
Stitching is the hardest job
it.” Glovemaking stuck—as has customer loyalty. “We’re one of the to master, taking almost a
only companies that will take our gloves back for repair,” Storey year to learn, Storey says.
says. “We get some that are 70 years old.” — C AT H E R I N E Z U C K E R M A N “It’s kind of a lost art.”

J U LY 2 0 2 2 25
Sometimes
it’s the little things
that make
UIF
CJHHFTU
EJFSFODF
 © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2022

You don’t need a big budget to make big

changes at home. A cuddly nightlight could be
all it takes to help them feel safe and sound
so they can get a good night’s sleep—and you
can too. Explore the IKEA Marketplace and
EJTDPWFS
BMM
UIF
BPSEBCMF
IPNF
FTTFOUJBMT
BOE

décor designed for a better everyday life.
,&"64"DPN.BSLFUQMBDF
E X P L O R E | PLANET POSSIBLE

Invasive plant species are a

problem across the United
P L A N E T
States. One remedy: Try
making them into treats.
For more stories about how
to help the planet, go to
natgeo.com.
BY JENNY L . BIRD

1 . H I M A L AYA N
It’s fine to shop at farmers
BL ACKBERRY
markets and grocery stores Native to Armenia, the plant
for recipe ingredients. But has thorny thickets that
smother other species, block
what if you could gather access through woods, and
some of them by foraging— injure livestock. Its fruit starts
to ripen in midsummer along
and, at the same time, help the edges of forests and fields
and in parks across the United
rid your region of non-native States. Add the berries to
plant species that are harm- baked goods such as muffins.

ing America’s ecosystems? 2. SOW THISTLE

According to the National Its creeping roots crowd out
useful crops and suck water and
Wildlife Federation, about 42 nitrogen from the soil. Native
percent of today’s threatened to Europe and western Asia,
sow thistle grows in forests,
or endangered species are at meadows, and riverbanks all
risk because of invasive spe- over North America in spring
and summer. Try sautéing the
cies. Be sure to forage only in leaves in olive oil and adding
them to a quesadilla.
nonpolluted areas, and verify
plant identity with an expert 3 . WAT E R C R E S S

or a smartphone app. Here are European settlers brought this

leafy green to the Colonies.
four invasives to look for—and It spread along waterways,
crowding out native plants.
ideas for serving them up. Watercress now grows in most
of the 50 U.S. states and Puerto
Rico. Harvest it from the edge
of a running stream in spring
and fall to make proper
watercress tea sandwiches.

4. KUDZU
Brought to the U.S. from
Japan, the kudzu vine can
grow a foot a day, depriving
other plants of sunlight. Its
fragrant purple flowers bloom
from July to September, but
its leaves, roots, and vine tips
are more readily available.
Kudzu sprouts in forests from
Texas to Massachusetts, and
in Oregon and Washington.
Pick flowers to use in making
the thirst quencher below.

When Life Gives You Kudzu,

Make Kudzu Lemonade
Combine one and a half cups of
sugar and eight cups of water
in a large pan; bring to a simmer,
stirring. When the sugar fully
dissolves, remove the mixture
from the heat and add four cups
of rinsed kudzu flowers. Let
them steep for an hour at room
temperature, then strain the
liquid to remove the flowers. Add
one cup of freshly squeezed lemon
juice, and serve this bright drink
over ice on a hot summer day. For
more information about the plants
and dishes mentioned here, visit
natgeofamily.com/invasives.

PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM LEFT): MARK THIESSEN; SDYM PHOTOGRAPHY; FLORALIMAGES;
HEMIS; NICK KURZENKO (ALAMY STOCK PHOTO: FOUR PLANT IMAGES)
 ®

IT ALL

STARTS HERE
Strength and stamina out there
start with high-performance nutrition in here.

Optimizes Oxygen
30% Protein & 20% Fat to
Metabolism (VO2 Max)
Maintain Lean Muscle
for Increased Stamina

ProPlanSport.com
Purina trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A. Any other marks are property of their respective owners.
E X P L O R E | DISCOVERY
ON THE ISLAND
OF ORCHIDS
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHAN HERMANS
Cymbidiella
F RO M T H E S H OW S TO P P E R
pardalina, with its operatic scarlet
lip (pictured), to the thumbnail-size
yellow Angraecum rhynchoglossum,
about a thousand species of orchids
call Madagascar home. Known for
their delicate details, these flowers
exhibit remarkable resistance to
wildfire and the severe drought now
plaguing this biodiverse Indian Ocean
island. Orchids with underground
tubers act as survival powerhouses,
says Jeannie Raharimampionona, a
Malagasy botanist, conservationist,
and National Geographic Explorer. In
her 22 years of award-winning work in
defense of island flora, she has helped
create a dozen refuges to protect plant
species from deforestation and habitat
loss. What continues to motivate her is
the astonishing rate of flora discovery
here. Even just “as a traveler, you could
see an orchid that is new for science,”
she says. — K AT I E K N O R OV S K Y
Learn more about the National
Geographic Society’s support
of Explorers’ work protecting critical
species at natgeo.com/impact.
E X P L O R E | THROUGH THE LENS

Diving Under
the Pyramids

I
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS
BY NICHOLE SOBECKI

Each step down

I C O U L D F E E L M YS E L F S U F F O C AT I N G .
the bedrock passageway brought me closer to what
I’d long imagined: the pool of khaki water, the flooded
tunnel it hid, and the moment I’d have to enter that
darkness. The crumbling grandeur of a pyramid
loomed above.
Here, at the ancient necropolis of Nuri in Sudan’s
northern desert, Kushite royals were laid to rest mil-
lennia ago in a series of underground burial cham-
bers beneath mighty pyramids. Now the chambers
were flooded with groundwater leaching from the
nearby Nile. Archaeologist Pearce Paul Creasman,
funded in part by a National Geographic Society
grant, was leading a team that would be the first to
attempt underwater archaeology below a pyramid.
Initially, I’d been calm, even excited, about going
along to photograph this ambitious and risky effort,
in 2020. But as I walked deeper underground, my
heart raced, and I could barely breathe.
I’d known this existential anxiety before. Nine years
ago, from crouching in a drainage pipe in Libya as
belt-fed machine guns peppered the ground above.
Seven years ago, under attack by Al Shabab terrorists
in a shopping mall in Nairobi as pop music eerily
played on. Four years ago, on a lawless beach in Soma-
THE PYRAMID S IN EGYP T lia. Here, there was no outward enemy but something
ARE MORE FAMOUS, BU T in my own mind screaming at me, Do not descend.
Creasman and dive master Justin Schneider saw
THE ONES IN SUDAN HIDE
my concern. “Give me a moment,” I said. Holding
R O YA L B U R I A L S I T E S T H AT
tightly to my camera, a weight belt slung across my
ARCHAEOLOGISTS CAN chest, I bit into my regulator and sank cross-legged
E X P L O R E —A S L O N G A S T H E Y below the waterline. Breathe. Just breathe.
D ON’ T MIND DIVING. Surfacing, I nodded to my companions: I was ready.
We descended, funneling ourselves through a narrow
chute and down into the disorienting blackness.

30 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Archaeologist
Pearce Paul
Creasman
prepares to
enter a flooded
tomb in the
necropolis of
Nuri, in Sudan.

J U LY 2 0 2 2 31
E X P L O R E | THROUGH THE LENS
Discoveries in the flooded necropolis include shabtis,
funerary figures intended to serve the king in the afterlife.
Every culture of the world has death traditions,
to ease the passage of loved ones into the next life and
soothe those left behind in this one. This 2,300-year-
old tomb was the resting place of Nastasen, a king
who led Kush for roughly two decades. Before him,
several of the Kushite kings, known as Black pha-
raohs, became so powerful that they ruled all of
Nubia and Egypt. Nastasen was the last of them to be
buried at Nuri before threats from rivals forced the
Kush to move their capital south. They left behind
extraordinary temples, pyramids—and
their interred pharaohs.
EGYPT
with its treasures
E XC AVAT I N G N U R I ,
AFRICA
SUDAN
hidden underwater, was an especially
formidable challenge. A century ago,
Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner
visited Nuri to explore, among others,
the burial chamber of King Taharqa, who
ruled all of Egypt in the seventh century
B.C. and even earned a mention in the Old Testament
for rallying his troops to defend Jerusalem.
Many of the other Nuri tombs, though, were left
unexplored. The waters have since risen higher,
influenced by climate change, the growing agricul-
tural needs of the area, and the modern dams that
are transforming the Nile.
Since Creasman’s work began, Sudan has expe-
rienced a coup, a global pandemic, record-setting
floods, and a 2019 revolution. When protesters top-
pled the 30-year dictatorship of Omar al Bashir—
whose government tried to erase Sudan’s pre-Islamic
history—they chanted the names of Nubian royals:
“My grandfather is Taharqa, my grandmother is a
kandaka (queen)!” Bashir is now facing charges at
the International Criminal Court. Protesters in the
streets denounce the military that grabbed power
and sabotaged the country’s democratic transition.
History long submerged has begun to surface.
channel into the tomb’s
I S WA M T H R O U G H A DA R K
chambers. Clouds of sediment obstructed all visibility,
and despite the small space, it was shockingly easy
to get lost and find yourself swimming in circles. A
hand connected with mine, and we emerged into the
second chamber, where the collapsed ceiling resulted
in a welcome air pocket. By flashlight, work began.
Traditional dirt-excavation skills were useless
here, so Creasman’s team had to develop new tech-
niques—often on the fly—to uncover the secrets of
this overlooked kingdom. Underwater archaeology
is now a specialized field, but in its early days, the
skills and tools were adapted from shipwreck salvag-
ers and rarely had been used in such tight confines.
No room for bulky scuba tanks either, obviously.
We breathed instead through sunshine yellow hoses
that ran back the way we entered, connecting us to the
air above. The risk of a cave-in couldn’t be absolutely
eliminated, but the entrance was reinforced with 50
linear feet of steel beams, and risk was just not talked
about much. Team members looked for anything of
interest—gold leaf, figurines, pottery—and noted
their findings with waterproof boards and markers. A
thin cord ran from the third and final burial chamber
to the world above, our guide through the darkness.
a rhythm. Creasman would
T H E WO R K AC Q U I R E D
descend into the final chamber, which held what
might have been Nastasen’s unopened sarcophagus.
A few minutes later, he’d return with a filled bucket;
it would be carried outside to team mem-
bers who’d examine and sort its contents.
About an hour into this routine, Creas-
man surfaced in the second chamber,
Nuri took a breath, and called out, “Shabti!”
royal
necropolis He tenderly lifted the funerary figurine
for us to see. Gazing at it in his palm, I
realized my breath had slowed to normal
and my mind had cleared. The carved
man was broken down the middle, but
retained his dignified, dutiful expression. He looked
ready to fulfill his destiny. Thousands of years ago—a
span so long I can’t really fathom it—the figures were
believed to revive in order to serve their masters in
the afterlife. Now here I was, in the underworld with
them. My fear washed away, and awe flooded in.
In my line of work I’ve had a few opportunities like
this: to experience an ancient marvel as most people
never will and to photograph it for the world to see.
I focused on the glistening-wet shabti; the camera
shutter blinked, making the ephemeral permanent.
Nastasen had rested here in darkness for two mil-
lennia, kept company by hundreds of tiny caretakers.
Soon I’d return to the world aboveground, with its
impossibly blue skies. But not yet. First, I shot frame
after frame, freezing this place in time and willing
myself to remember those things beyond my ability
to capture. j
Nichole Sobecki is a photographer, filmmaker, and National
Geographic Explorer based in Nairobi, Kenya. Learn more
about the National Geographic Society’s support of Explorers
at natgeo.com/impact.
NGM MAPS
 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C J U LY 2 0 2 2

Native Sovereignty . . . . . P. 36
Urban Wildlife . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 76
Flooding in Java . . . . . . . . . . P. 96
Italy’s Appian Way. . . . . . P. 116

F EAT U R E S

BEGUN IN 312 B.C., ITALY ’S

116 A P P I A N WAY WA S T H E F I R S T
M A J O R H I G H WAY I N E U R O P E .
NOW THIS ‘QUEEN OF ROADS’
IS ON THE ASCENDANCE
A G A I N, A S A WA L K I N G R O U T E .

PHOTO: ANDREA FRAZZETTA

 N O RT H A M E R I C A’ S I N D I G E N O U S N AT I O N S
A R E R E C L A I M I N G T H E I R S OV E R E I G N T Y:
CONTROL OF THEIR LAND, LAWS, AND HOW THEY LIVE.

BY Quannah Rose Chasinghorse, protect what’s left.” She is

a groundbreaking Indigenous
CHARLES C. MANN model, uses her fame to sup-
port her activism, reminding
people “whose land you’re
PHOTOGRAPHS BY living on.” Native sovereignty,
she says, is key to “defend-
K I L I I I Y Ü YA N ing my ways of life, trying to
Hän Gwich’in and Sičangu/
Oglala Lakota, but was born
on Diné (Navajo) land in
Arizona. Here, Chasinghorse
stands in Tse’Bii’Ndzisgaii
(Monument Valley), a park
administered by the Diné.

“We Are Here” appears in the languages of these Indigenous peoples, identified by color:
QTla-o-qui-aht QSiksikaitsitapi QChahta QKaruk QOnondaga QMohawk 37
An extreme sport
spun from the horse
traditions of the plains,
Indian Relay is a break-
neck bareback race
on painted steeds, with
riders switching from
one galloping horse
to another every lap.
The event has spread
across the North Amer-
ican West, putting a
distinctive Indigenous
stamp on agricultural
fairs like this one in
Kalispell, Montana.
Carrying cedar boards
to repair a walkway,
Joe Louie passes the
welcome sign to the
Tla-o-qui-aht’s Meares
Island tribal park, near
Vancouver Island in
British Columbia. The
island has been effec-
tively controlled by
the nation since the
1980s, when it stopped
loggers from working
there. Today Tla-o-
qui-aht parks guard-
ians, including Louie,
maintain and protect
the land.
SOVEREIGNTY to Native nations means both the FREEDOM
to decide one’s actions and the RESPONSIBILITY to
keep THE WORLD IN BALANCE, an idea the Siksikaitsitapi
(Blackfoot) express by the word AATSIMOIYIHKAAN .

42 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

For nearly two decades,
the Tla-o-qui-aht have
been in negotiations
over their homeland,
which includes rugged
Radar Beach on Van-
couver Island. Because
most of British Colum-
bia’s first peoples never
signed treaties with
Canada, they maintain
the country’s constitu-
tion guarantees that
the land is still legally
theirs—along with its
valuable forests and
fisheries. Increasingly,
Canadian courts have
agreed with them.
The National
Geographic Society,
committed to illuminat-
ing and protecting the
wonder of our world,
has funded Explorer
Kiliii Yüyan’s storytelling
around Indigenous peo-
ple and conservation
since 2021.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY
Chapter One
RECLAIMING THE LAND
Tla-o-qui-aht • British Columbia
THE BLOCK OF RED CEDAR was about six
feet long and three feet high and almost as
wide. Gordon Dick was slicing off its rounded
top. The chainsaw bit into it, spraying saw-
dust. Noise-canceling headphones on, Joe
Martin crouched to watch where the blade poked
through. With his right hand he made little sig-
nals—up a bit, down, good. The air filled with
the sharp, almost medicinal scent of cedar.
Martin is a Tla-o-qui-aht artist on the west
coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia.
Dick, another carver, is from the Tseshaht, a
neighboring nation. They were making the first
rough cuts on a statue of a wolf sitting on its
haunches—a short totem pole, in effect. Nearby
were two larger poles, almost complete, 24 feet
and 30 feet tall. Up one side of each pole, stacked
atop each other, were symbolic figures: bears,
suns, mythical sea serpents, more wolves.
This summer, Martin will erect one of the
poles in his family’s home village of Opitsaht on
Meares Island, near the Vancouver Island resort
town of Tofino. Opitsaht had hundreds until an
1884 Canadian law forced Native peoples to let
collectors and museums freely take them—which
they did. Like stained glass windows in cathe-
drals, totem poles are visual representations of
traditional teachings. But their imposing pres-
ence makes them more than that, Martin told me.
“They say, ‘We are here. This is our space.’ ”
Meares Island is part of the Tla-o-qui-aht
homeland. So are Tofino and scores of islands
in Clayoquot Sound (Clayoquot is an older spell-
ing of the nation’s name). Canada says these 400
square miles are a mix of national park, provincial
timber zones, and private land, with a few tiny
Native village sites. But the Tla-o-qui-aht say it’s
all their territory and always has been. They have
declared the entire area to be tribal parks.
Much of this area has been logged—badly, by
firms that stripped the country of its valuable
This totem pole will
rise in the village
of Opitsaht on Meares
Island to commem-
orate the Tla-o-qui-
aht’s recent history.
The skulls (at far right)
symbolize victims of
COVID-19, students
who died in residential
schools, and murdered
and missing Indigenous
women. “When the
Europeans came, they
said we were illiterate,”
explains Joe Martin,
the master carver who
is overseeing the pole’s
creation. “But so were
they—they couldn’t
read our totem poles.”
ancient cedar and created erosion and ruin.
“They came and left,” said Saya Masso, head of
the Tla-o-qui-aht natural resources department.
“That was 50 years ago. And they didn’t restore
the land, and neither did British Columbia or
Canada. So we’re doing it.” Tla-o-qui-aht
British Columbia
The Tla-o-qui-aht are rechanneling streams,
re-creating the prelogging ecosystem, protect-
ing herring spawning areas, and blockading WHAT DOES
logging roads in delicate spots where visitors
shouldn’t go. On top of the conservation work,
SOVEREIGNTY
they are beginning the tedious but vital business
of nation building: starting their own education
MEAN TO YOU?
programs, hiring their own rangers (known as
parks guardians), and, possibly most impor-
tant, persuading businesses to add something
‘Language is part
akin to a sales tax—a voluntary one percent
surcharge—to their customers’ bills to support
of who we are,
the nation’s endeavors.
When Native people talk about this work,
they often use the word “sovereignty.” Typically,
and so who we are
sovereignty means “self-rule.” But people like
Masso and Martin mean more than that by the
is trying to relearn
term. It stands for a vision of Native societies as
autonomous cultures, part of the modern world
but rooted in their own long-standing values,
our language
working as equal partners with nontribal govern-
ments at every level. “The closest English term
and regrow as a
that I know to what we mean by sovereignty is
‘self-actualization,’ ” said Leroy Little Bear of the
Kainai (Blood). An emeritus law professor at
community.’
TIMMY MASSO
the University of Lethbridge, Little Bear played language activist

a key role in the enshrinement of Indigenous

rights in the Canadian Constitution in 1982.
“Sovereignty is having access to all of ourselves.”
The Tla-o-qui-aht are not alone, or even
exceptional. All over Turtle Island—a common
Indigenous name for North America, from ori-
gin stories about the world being atop a turtle’s
shell—its original inhabitants are reclaiming a
status that they have never surrendered, and
in the process are changing their own lives
and those of their neighbors. And—perhaps
most remarkable—they have gained a measure
of acceptance from the nontribal world.
The effects range from tribal police in Mon-
tana successfully defending their right to detain
Listen to the podcast “This
Indigenous Practice Fights
Fire With Fire.” Use your phone’s
camera to scan the QR code.
HIGHLIGHTING the recovery of
Nuu-chah-nulth, the Tla-o-qui-aht
tongue, Masso displays two masks—
one with no mouth to symbolize
the loss of the language, one with
an open mouth to show its revival.
Beginning in the 1830s, Canada
forced about 150,000 Indigenous
children into residential schools and
forbade them to use their mother
tongues, which nearly put an end to
them. Masso wrote a song and his
brother, Hjalmer Wenstob, carved
these masks for a performance
they created to promote learning
Nuu-chah-nulth—a vital part of
reestablishing Tla-o-qui-aht culture.

46
 Qu
ee
n
Ch
Port Hardy

ar
lo BRITISH
tte
St
r.
COLUMBIA

V
A
N
C
O
U
Campbell

V
NUU-CHAH-NULTH River

E
R
CANADA C A N A DA
Tla-o-qui-aht territory
Vancouver
Island (Ha'huulthii)
PA C I F I C
UNITED
STATES Tseshaht
OCEAN

I S
Vancouver

L
A
Indigenous community The borders extend

N
Salish

St
into the ocean to .o

D
r
Canadian Indian reserve include fishing and fJ
ua Sea
Nuu-chah-nulth cultural region whale-hunting waters. n
de Victoria
Fu
ca
25 mi UNITED
25 km S TAT E S

Sacred parks Tla-o-qui-aht territory (Ha'huulthii)

The Tla-o-qui-aht, one of the Ahousaht Wah-nah-jus –

Hilth-hoo-is
14 nations of the Nuu-chah-nulth on Clayoquot (Meares Island)
Vancouver Island, established four Sound Tribal Park
adjacent tribal parks as an expres- Tranquil
Tribal Park
sion of their inherent rights to over- Opitsaht Meares
see the land, air, water, and spirit of Tofino Island
Ha’uukmin
the territory—as they have done for (Kennedy Lake
millennia. The nation manages the Esowista
Watershed)
Tribal Park
watershed, ecotourism, and polic- Tribal Park
ing by parks guardians. Indigenous Radar
land-use methods are restoring ter- Beach Kennedy
Lake
rain ravaged by timber operations. PA C I F I C
OCEAN Toquaht
5 mi
Ucluelet Ucluelet
5 km First Nation

non-Natives whom they suspect of committing to regain sovereignty methodically—one lawsuit,

crimes on their lands to boards in Canada that
take input from Indigenous and government
representatives and jointly oversee environ-
mental issues across nearly 1.7 million square
miles—about 40 percent of the country. Most of
this work is small scale, almost under the radar,
such as the collaboration among the Nakoda
(Assiniboine), the Aaniiih (Gros Ventre), and
the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to restore
prairie land in Montana. But some of it has
thunderous impact, like the U.S. Supreme Court
ruling in 2020 that led lower courts to affirm
nearly half of Oklahoma is Native land.
Much as African American activists pushed
civil rights through litigation and legislation that
built incrementally, Native nations have pushed
one negotiation, one law, one program at a time.
For decades the Tla-o-qui-aht protested that they
had never signed a treaty with British Colum-
bia, and thus had given up none of their rights
or land. Until 1993, the province refused even to
negotiate. Only in October of last year, after 19
years of talks and several side agreements, did
it agree to a framework for discussions. The pro-
cess has been grindingly slow, but the change is
as undeniable as the roadside sign that greets
visitors entering tribal territory: Tla-O-Qui-Aht
Ha’houlthee—Tla-o-qui-aht Homeland.
None of this is foreordained to continue. More
than 42 percent of the officially recognized tribes
in the United States have no federally or state-
recognized reservation, and the reservations of

ROSEMARY WARDLEY AND PATRICIA HEALY, NGM STAFF

SOURCES: GISELE MARIA MARTIN; TLA-O-QUI-AHT TRIBAL PARKS; NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA; FIRST NATIONS HEALTH AUTHORITY
tribes that possess them are a tiny fraction of what
they had in the past. Native peoples are among
the poorest and unhealthiest on the continent,
with some of the highest rates of drug-overdose
deaths of any racial or ethnic group. Indigenous
women in particular face violence at horrific
rates. Most worrisome for activists, the U.S. and
Canadian governments retain the power to dis-
mantle Native victories at any time.
When I asked Saya Masso what he hoped to see
in five or 10 years, he gave me a list: improved
health care; a museum and cultural center; a
tribal longhouse to replace the one destroyed
in the 19th century; a bigger, higher-paid parks
guardian force; better sewage treatment; an
entire Tla-o-qui-aht school system. The key to
all that is building the tribal economic base, he
said. “And the root of doing that is sovereignty,
nation to nation.”
“The world doesn’t know we’re equal,” he said.
“But we’re getting better at telling them.”
Chapter Two
LET THE GAMES BEGIN
Chahta • Oklahoma
THE FIRST TIME I TRIED to use the ishtaboli
sticks was at the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma’s
Labor Day Festival, the biggest official gathering
of the Chahta, as they call themselves. Held in
Tuskahoma, the nation’s capital, it’s in some
ways like any county fair—and in some ways
not. One of the biggest nots is ishtaboli.
A team sport older than any played by their col-
onizers, ishtaboli is called stickball in English.
Each team puts 30 players on a soccer-like field
with a 12-foot post at each end. Every player has
two sticks—always handcrafted—with the wood
bent over and lashed into a loop at the end. The
loop has leather strips that form a pocket barely
big enough for the small, leather-covered ball.
Using only their sticks, players carry, pass, or
shoot the ball—hands aren’t allowed. Each side
tries to hit its goalpost with the ball while pre-
venting the other from doing the same thing. Few
rules limit how the players can do this.
When some Chahta acquaintances at the festi-
val tried to teach me how to catch the ball, I could
barely do it. One of the few times I was successful,
they rushed me. I looked up to see four guys with
The government
not only went
after tribal land,
it also went
after the tribes
themselves,
setting dates to
‘terminate’ them
as legal entities.
sticks charging in my direction. Did I mention
that the game is played without padding or hel-
mets? That some people play barefoot? The guys
plowed into me. One reached out a hand to help
me up. “Now you’re Choctaw for today,” he said,
kindly. “You’re ready to play,” said another.
In the old days the game was played in the
open countryside, often with hundreds of play-
ers on each side. Entire communities gathered.
Competition was so intense that ishtaboli is
known as the little brother of war. It was some-
times used to settle disputes. Some of that
rowdiness is still present. Games stop for little
but jump balls and injuries. The crowd yells and
bangs drums as people collide on the field. When
players catch the ball, opponents pile onto them.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to play,” I said.
The Chahta homeland was the fine bottomland
of Mississippi. After Europeans arrived, Chahta
leaders played Spain, France, and England
against each other, trading with all sides and cre-
ating prosperous farms and ranches. The nation’s
first decades with the new United States were
largely peaceful—the Chahta even allied with it
against Great Britain and its Native allies in the
War of 1812. The great Chahta leader Pushmataha
was commissioned as a brigadier general.
Despite their alliance, the Chahta became in
1830 the first of more than 40 nations forced to
WE ARE HERE 49
The Chickasaw Nation
owns and operates
the huge WinStar World
Casino and Resort in
Thackerville, Oklahoma.
The nation has 31
casinos and gaming
operations that help
pay for, among other
things, education, hous-
ing, and health care
for its 73,000 citizens,
as well as the salary
of its ambassador to
the United States.
MUSCOGEE
Oklahoma

Principal Chief David

Hill was at the forefront
of the fight that led to
the landmark McGirt v.
Oklahoma decision in
2020. The U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that the
Muscogee reservation
still exists legally, which
led to similar recog-
nition of tribal lands
for five other Native
nations in the state.

52 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
CHEROKEE
Oklahoma

WHAT DOES
SOVEREIGNTY
MEAN TO YOU?
‘Sovereignty
is the right
for us to
decide what
we want
to become.’
SARA HILL
Cherokee Nation
Attorney General

THE MCGIRT DECISION is

a hot-button issue in the state, and
Hill now spends much of her time
wrestling with the consequences,
including what it means for the Cher-
okee Nation’s sovereignty. “I tend to
think about it in terms of not only
preserving what was,” she says, “but
the right to be a separate people
with a separate destiny.” For her,
that means the tribe’s descendants
creating their own future. “People
took away Cherokee children for a
century, putting them in boarding
schools so they could become what
others wanted them to be.”
 CANADA

UNITED
STATES
Oklahoma

Sovereignty reaffirmed
In the 1830s the federal government
forced members of dozens of nations to
resettle in Indian Territory, which became
part of the new state of Oklahoma in
1907. A landmark Supreme Court decision
in 2020 reaffirmed the existence of the
Muscogee Nation’s reservation based on
its 1833 treaty boundaries. That recogni-
tion of tribal land has been extended to
five other nations in Oklahoma.

1890
Indian Territory is cut in half by the newly
established Oklahoma Territory.

KANSAS
MO.
PUBLIC LAND STRIP
OK LA HO M A
TE RR I T O RY
ARKANSAS

INDIAN 1890
INDIAN
TERRITORY
1854–1890 TERRITORY
1890

TEXAS

1907
Oklahoma gains statehood; most reservations
are eventually dissolved.

Osage
Reservation
OKLAHOMA leave their homelands and move to what was
Oklahoma City
then called Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
Tuskahoma Their journey inaugurated the infamous Trail of
Thackerville
Tears. In return for ceding their land, the Chahta
Durant
made one crucial demand: sovereignty. In the
Counties with 10% or higher treaty the U.S. promised that “no territory or
American Indian population in 2020
State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the
Government of the Choctaw Nation … and that
no part of the land granted them shall ever be
embraced in any territory or State.”
That promise was not kept. In the next few
decades much of the new Chahta homeland
was parceled off to other Native nations. The
rest was converted from communal to private
land and distributed to tribe members who were
often strong-armed into selling it to settlers. In
1907 Indian Territory was incorporated into
the new state of Oklahoma. Indigenous nations

ROSEMARY WARDLEY, PATRICIA HEALY, AND SOREN WALLJASPER, NGM STAFF

SOURCES: HISTORIC PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT, CHOCTAW NATION OF OKLAHOMA; OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY; U.S. CENSUS BUREAU; USGS
 Nineteen-year-old
Andrew Amos runs
for a pass in a co-ed
practice game of
ishtaboli (stickball)
in Durant, Oklahoma.
A member of Tvshka
Homma, the Choctaw
Nation’s men’s team,
Amos has played since
he was seven—in contrast
with previous genera-
tions, which faced
government efforts to
suppress the game and
other expressions of
Native American culture.
Players are in constant
motion and wear no
padding, no helmets,
no gloves, and, some-
times, no shoes.

outside Oklahoma faced similar losses. Today
the average reservation is 2.6 percent of the
size of the original homeland.
Not only did the government go after tribal
land, it also went after the tribes themselves, set-
ting dates to “terminate” them as legal entities.
The Chahta came within a whisker of termina-
tion. Other nations weren’t so lucky.
If there’s a single beginning for the turnaround
in Native America, it may be the passage of the
Indian Self-Determination Act in 1975. Pushed
through by a wave of Indigenous activism, it
created mechanisms for tribes to establish and,
most important, direct their own programs. It
meant bringing back Chahta dance and Chahta
language, which had been suppressed by mis-
sionaries. And it meant the first openly played
games of ishtaboli in decades—the game had
been forbidden in the old Indian schools.
All the while, nations across Turtle Island were
fighting to escape state laws that restricted their
actions, often keeping them from having an eco-
nomic base. After two legal battles that reached
the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing that Native
nations are not subject to many local or state
laws, Congress in 1988 passed a law that cleared
the way for them to run gaming operations.
Today the Choctaw Nation has seven casinos
in southeast Oklahoma—and more than 200,000
enrolled members. The nation has become a
powerful economic force, responsible for almost
100,000 jobs. And it’s rebuilding its land base,
having bought some 60,000 acres. With the
income from their casinos and businesses, the
Chahta construct roads, support schools, put up
clinics, and build homes for their elders. They

WE ARE HERE 55
 have erected 17 community centers—one in
almost every town in the nation.
“Sovereignty is at the basis of everything we
do,” Sue Folsom, the cultural project manager
for the nation, told me. Folsom supervised the
development of the new cultural center, which
opened last year. One of its most prominent
Yurok exhibits treats the contentious history of the
California
Chahta and the U.S. government. It’s called

WHAT DOES “Protecting Our Sovereignty.”

SOVEREIGNTY Chapter Three

MEAN TO YOU?
RENEWING THE WORLD
‘As a sovereign Karuk • California

nation, we never “KARUK PRAYERS DON’T sound like Christian

prayers,” Leaf Hillman said. “I don’t close my

gave up our right eyes and bow my head—those are acts of subser-
vience that are not part of Karuk belief systems.”
One way to describe Hillman would be to
to use fire. We gave say he’s the former longtime director of natu-
ral resources and environmental policy for the

up a lot of things, Karuk Tribe. A second would be to note that he’s

an officiant during Pikyávish, the annual cere-
monies that renew the world. A third would be
but fire wasn’t as a key strategist of a long struggle that resulted
in one of the most consequential environmental

one of them.’
MARGO ROBBINS
Basket Weaver
AS SHE GREW UP , Robbins
watched U.S. fire suppression policies
transform the forests around her
into monocultures of Douglas fir that
no longer sustained species impor-
tant to the Yurok people. Particularly
painful was the loss of new hazel
shoots, essential to making baskets,
caps, and, especially, cradles. Not
wanting to see her grandchildren
raised without Yurok cradles, she
co-founded the Indigenous Peoples
Burning Network, which teaches
fire-setting techniques to maintain
the landscape as her ancestors did.
agreements in North America in many decades.
But I like to think of him as the man who helped
ruin Warren Buffett’s big day.
The morning we met, Hillman was standing
next to Bill Tripp, now the natural resources
director. We were on a ridge, looking down at the
center of the world. Hillman wore a T-shirt with
a drawing of a salmon. His hair was neatly tied
back, and there was a pencil behind his ear. A
gray baseball cap shadowed Tripp’s forehead and
eyes. His T-shirt said, “Karuk Fire Management.”
Below us was the confluence of the Salmon
and Klamath Rivers—rushing together in a high-
sided bowl ringed by mountain peaks. Near the
junction was a gravel flat: the site of Katimîin,
a former Karuk village and one of the places
where the Karuk renew the world.
World renewal is a ceremony to align Karuk
people with the living processes around them.
Humans can lose the balance between giving
and taking. The rites seek to correct for this.
“The prayers at world renewal tell the spirit
people what we’re doing,” Hillman said. “It’s like,

WE ARE HERE 57
Low flames in cool
weather—set during
a Yurok-led training
exercise—burn
harmlessly through
underbrush near
Orleans, California,
consuming fuel that
could drive dangerous
conflagrations. After
miners, farmers, and
state and federal gov-
ernments took their
lands, Native nations
were forced to stop
protective burning—
a major reason that
today’s wildfires are
so destructive.
‘Listen, Mountain!’ You explain the acts as you
perform them.”
Spirit people are creatures with supernatural
aspects, which include anything from mountains
to people. “Humans are the worst of the spirit
people because we have the shortest memory,”
Hillman said. The prayer is “to remind people
of their obligations to the other spirit people.”
“Prayers are teaching devices,” Tripp said. “It’s
a codification of our management processes—
what we’ve learned from surviving in this place
for a long, long time. The prayer says, ‘This is
what we’re doing with the fire, this is what hap-
pens in the water.’ ”
Both men were born and raised around the
Klamath River, which begins in south-central
Oregon, cuts through the Cascade Mountains,
and empties into the Pacific Ocean in far north-
ern California. The river zigzags through forest
scenery of the spectacular rugged variety. Like
the Egyptians with the Nile, the river tribes are
shaped by the Klamath—indeed, the Karuk have
come to be known by their word for “upriver.”
Downstream are the Yurok, whose name derives
from the Karuk word for “downriver.”
The names are more than geographic markers.
They position the societies with respect to their
greatest resource: the enormous salmon runs that
flow up the Klamath to spawn. Or rather, flowed
up. The river used to be home to the third larg-
est salmon migrations in the continental U.S.,
celebrated for its Chinook salmon. Now their
numbers have been reduced by 90 percent.
The annual movements of the fish were a
demonstration of the order and benevolence
of the world. The Karuk, Yurok, Hupa (who live person” to effectively enslave Native people,
on a big Klamath tributary), and the Klamath and then the state and federal governments
Tribes (who live at the headwaters) kept that sponsored what amounted to death squads.
order by managing their landscape, regularly Thousands of Indigenous men, women, and
subjecting their terrain to low-level burns that children were murdered. Bounties were offered:
prevent severe fires and maintain uncluttered 50 cents for a scalp, five dollars for a head.
areas, promoting game and useful plant species. The federal government turned much of
This arrangement abruptly changed in 1848, the Klamath Basin into national forest. And the
when the United States won California in the California- Oregon Power Company (Copco) built
Mexican-American War and the gold rush began. four enormous hydroelectric dams on the river.
California had several hundred Indigenous All of them blocked salmon.
groups and a scattering of colonists. Within Worse, they helped spread disease. As riv-
four years the U.S. had signed 18 treaties with ers flow into reservoirs, the water slows down,
134 Native communities, including the Karuk, warms up, and deposits sediment. Slow, warm,
Yurok, and Hupa. But Congress refused even to silty waters are ideal habitat for the tiny aquatic
consider them, and the government simply took worm that hosts Ceratonova shasta, a parasite
most of their land. that kills salmon. In May 2021 a Yurok monitor-
California passed a law allowing “any white ing team found 97 percent of the juvenile salmon

60 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
 With a dip net,
Karuk fisherman Ryan
Reed searches for
Chinook salmon under
the watchful eye
of his father, Ron, on
California’s Klamath
River at Ishi Pishi Falls.
The Reeds caught no
fish—in stark contrast
to earlier times. Before
California became
a state, the river saw
about 500,000 salmon
each fall, but last
year just 53,954 mature
Chinook swam up,
a 90 percent decline.
The nation now restricts
salmon fishing to Ishi
Pishi Falls, but with the
slated removal of four
dams, the Karuk hope
the salmon will return.

swimming downstream were infected with
C. shasta. Most of them would die within days.
Reservoirs are also perfect habitat for a species
of cyanobacteria called Microcystis aeruginosa.
Not only does M. aeruginosa turn the water
bright green and make it smell like rotting
seaweed, it also releases a toxin linked to liver
disease in salmon and people. In the world-
renewal ceremonies, officiants had stood in the
water. Now doing that would risk their health.
With fire suppression and dams transforming
their homeland into something unrecognizable,
the Klamath societies began to fight back.
The dams ended up being owned by Berkshire
Hathaway, the giant holding firm controlled by
Buffett, the Omaha, Nebraska, billionaire. Every
year Berkshire Hathaway hosts a shareholders
meeting in an Omaha stadium. Surrounded by
nearly 30,000 delirious fans, Buffett holds court.
“It is his favorite day,” Hillman said. “They just
love him. Well, we decided to ruin it.”
In 2008 Karuk, Yurok, and Hupa activists,
many dressed in traditional clothes, waited
outside all night to be first in each of seven lines
set up for people to ask questions. When Buffett
brushed off the first question about the dams,
the person in the next line also asked him about
them, and the next, and the next. Flustered, Buf-
fett cut short the Q and A, and security officers
removed Hillman and some of the other activists.
“He just hated it!” Hillman said. “They had to
drag us out yelling from their party.” Eventually
a deal was negotiated with PacifiCorp, the sub-
sidiary that owns the dams. “They said they’d
take down the dams if we promised never to go to
Omaha again. I said, ‘I never wanted to go there in

WE ARE HERE 61
 e
R a n g
Upstream battle Upper
Dams along the Klamath River— Klamath
Lake
sacred to the Karuk, Yurok, Hupa, and
Klamath Tribes—have blocked salmon Klamath Falls

C a s c a d e
from reaching spawning grounds and
harmed the water quality. The nations John C. Boyle
have fought industry and government
to remove four dams, which would OREGON

S
help restore the river’s flow and CALIFORNIA

E
Copco 1
revive its diminished salmon runs.
Iron Gate B
Copco 2 I
ath R
Klam T
M A T H
K L A
Crescent City
Yreka
K
A
Yuro
k CANADA
R
K
PACIFIC
lam

K
U

Klamath
ath

R O
Ishi Pishi Falls UNITED
River Basin STATES
O CEAN U
K

Y Orleans
Sa
lm
on
KARUK Historic homeland
Hoopa Karuk-owned or trust land
Valley Federal Indian reservation
Tr

Trinidad
in

National forest
ity

10 mi
HUPA 10 km Dam to be demolished

the first place!’ ” Buffett had agreed to what might
be the biggest dam-removal project in history.
It didn’t happen right away. No clear legal
process for taking down giant dams existed.
Congress let legislation lapse, leaving Califor-
nia, Oregon, PacifiCorp, and the tribes to find
the $450 million needed to take down the dams.
Afraid of creating a precedent, politicians, dam
operators, and risk-averse bureaucracies put up
obstacles at every step. But after more than a
decade of legal strife, the dams are scheduled
to come down next year—a major step toward
re-creating the landscape of Hillman’s ancestors.
Similar struggles have been occurring all
across Turtle Island. In 1984 the Tla-o-qui-aht
began blockading Meares Island, preventing
timber companies from clear-cutting ancient
cedars in a confrontation so furious it’s called
the War in the Woods. The Oceti Sakowin—
the seven branches of the Lakota and Dakota—are
still in a standoff with the United States over the
Black Hills, illegally seized in 1877. Cree, Métis,
and Dene in Alberta have been fighting oil sands
development for two decades. And fights against
pipelines—the Dakota Access, the Keystone XL,
and so on—continue to make headlines.
In Washington State a group of 14 nations bat-
tled local, state, and federal officials for decades
over their rights to fish and manage salmon, a
billion-dollar industry in the state. Treaties
signed in the 1850s had guaranteed the region’s
first peoples the rights to fish and hunt “at all
usual and accustomed grounds.” Today, after
multiple Supreme Court rulings, Indigenous and
state governments co-manage coastal waters for
salmon and steelhead; four nations in Oregon
co-manage fisheries on the Columbia River. In
2018 the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court
decision ordering Washington State to spend
billions to fix or replace about a thousand
salmon-blocking culverts—upholding that the
right to fish was meaningless if a state destroyed
the fish.
The last time I saw Hillman, I told him I’d
visited one of the Klamath dams due to be
removed next year. I had walked around the
reservoir, which was thick with Microcystis aeru-
ginosa. The water stank and was intensely green.
“With any luck,” Hillman said, “you’ll be one
of the last people to see that.”

ROSEMARY WARDLEY AND MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF

SOURCES: YUROK TRIBE GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY; KARUK TRIBE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES; ALEX GONYAW, THE KLAMATH TRIBES
Chapter Four
RESTORING THE CORN
Haudenosaunee • New York
WHEN WE WALKED INTO the barn, Angela
Ferguson was sitting in a camp chair, glasses
propped on her head, ankle-deep in ears of
dried corn. Around her the husking bee was in
full swing: a dozen people in western New York,
shucking and braiding, plastic crates beside
them full of husks and cobs. The cobs were
glossy and multicolored, a panoply of red and
yellow and cream and slate blue-gray.
Inside the barn were three main rooms. Like a
cheerful, exuberant general, Ferguson directed
operations in the middle room. Behind her and
the other huskers was a second room full of
wheeled metal racks. Corn ears, braided together
by their dried husks, hung from the racks—
several dozen varieties, none of them remotely
similar to supermarket corn. More braids, equally
varied, dangled from the ceiling. All of this would
be ground into flour for traditional dishes or pre-
served as seed for Indigenous farmers.
The third room remains closed with an atten-
dant outside 24/7. Ferguson let us inside with a
flourish. It’s a library. But instead of books, the
room is lined floor to ceiling with neatly labeled
glass jars. Inside each jar are corn kernels—more
than 4,000 varieties altogether. “I cried when I
saw these for the first time,” she said. “It was
more than I could have imagined was possible.”
Ferguson is Onondaga. The Onondaga are
one of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee
(Iroquois Confederacy), whose homelands are
in what is now upstate New York and southern
Ontario. In tales by early U.S. writers such as
James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving,
the Haudenosaunee are portrayed as fierce war-
riors. And it is indeed true that for three cen-
turies the six nations have furiously resisted
their colonizers. But that misses a much more
important part of their identity. The Haudeno-
saunee thought of themselves as highly skilled
farmers, people who transformed their northerly
landscape into an agricultural powerhouse. The
foundation of that powerhouse was … corn.
The world’s most important staple crop, corn
was developed almost 10,000 years ago in south-
ern Mexico. By about A.D. 1000, it had spread
throughout Turtle Island. Everywhere it went,
It became ever
harder for
Indigenous peoples
to grow and eat
their own foods,
as central to their
identities as it is
to other cultures
around the globe.
local breeders adapted it, creating thousands
of types, from two-inch cobs with tiny, deep
red kernels for popcorn to cobs almost two feet
long with thumbnail-size kernels that, Ferguson
said, “dance atop boiling soup.” This festival of
diversity is preserved in the Onondaga library.
The U.S. takeover of Indigenous societies is
often described in terms of land. But it also was
an assault on culture: banning religions, sup-
pressing languages, even prohibiting games like
ishtaboli. A little-noticed aspect of the conquest
was that it became ever harder for Indigenous
peoples to grow and eat their own foods, as cen-
tral to their identities as it is to other cultures
around the globe.
Ferguson told me she is “just a traditional corn
grower” who always had a “little family garden.”
Twelve years ago she decided to work on a larger
scale, growing corn for elders.
“It was selfish,” she said, laughing. “I just gave
them some corn, and they gave me so much
knowledge in return—recipes at first, and then
the history of our people.” In 2015 she persuaded
the Onondaga Nation to help her expand. She and
her collaborators staged community gatherings
with free food—traditional Haudenosaunee vari-
eties of corn, of course, but also beans, squashes,
fruits, vegetables, fish, and venison.
“The food draws people together,” Ferguson
WE ARE HERE 63
Standing in their field,
members of the Onkwe
community garden in
Akwesasne, New York,
display traditional vari-
eties of corn, squashes,
and beans they are
reviving. Onkwe is one
of about a hundred
such projects in Haude-
nosaunee territory.
SENECA
New York

WHAT DOES
SOVEREIGNTY
MEAN TO YOU?
‘It’s brought
me on a path
that’s leading me
towards being
grounded,
being more
connected
with the earth.’
ANGEL MAREA JIMERSON
production manager

CORN WAS A STAPLE of the

Haudenosaunee diet, and Jimerson
hopes the Iroquois White Corn
Project at the Ganondagan State
Historic Site in New York, where the
Seneca had a town in the 17th cen-
tury, will restore that role. Founded
in the 1990s, the project hand-raises
and hand-processes white corn. As
a young Native American, Jimerson
says they struggled in their early
years but found their purpose work-
ing with their cultural heritage,
learning patience, resourcefulness,
gratitude, and mindfulness.
 ONONDAGA
New York
Angela Ferguson works
with Indigenous col-
leagues to bring back
varieties of corn nearly
lost to colonization and
industrialization. For
Native people wanting
to make a statement,
she says, “the biggest
protest you can make
is to put one of your
seeds in the ground.”

WE ARE HERE 67
 QU É B E C
Kanesatake
Lands Montréal
Rich roots O N TA R I O
Ottawa
Akwesasne no. 15
Kahnawake no. 14
Abundant corn crops were a Akwesasne no. 59 CANADA
source of sustenance as well as Wahta Mohawk
nc
e
St. Regis
U.S.
Territory re Lake
cultural and political stability C A N A D A Mohawk

E
w Champlain

a
.L
for the six nations of the Haude- Tyendinaga

St

E
nosaunee. Their Grand Council Mohawk

M
Territory
has governed for generations, V T.

N
O N
even as members of the nations

O
U
are now dispersed between

E I D

H
the United States and Canada. Lake Ontario

O N ONDA G A
Toronto

A
Tuscarora Nation Onondaga

A
Six Nations Nation

A
MIC HIGA N

S
no. 40 Tonawanda Ganondagan
O Mohaw

W
S.H.S.

C AY
Oneida no. 41
N

S
Buffalo k
E Albany

K
D Oneida

UGA
N
Cattaraugus
H A U Nation

E
MASS.
rie

C
E N E W Y O R K
ke

A
L a Oil Springs TUSCARORA
Allegany

Hudson
P E N N S Y LVA N I A
CANADA CONN.
MAP U N I T E D S T A T E S
AREA Haudenosaunee Cultural Region
UNITED
STATES CAYUGA Ancestral territory N.J.
Canadian Indian reserve New York
25 mi
U.S. federal Indian reservation 25 km

said. “It’s medicine—‘medicine’ in our sense,
not the drugstore sense. I would get up from the
table and feel the power of our community.”
The next year Ferguson co-founded Braid-
ing the Sacred, with the goal of bringing back
Indigenous farms and foods across Turtle Island.
Braiding the Sacred is part of a movement called
food sovereignty. From this perspective, food
is a bond that unites people, health, and land.
One of the organization’s first tasks was to
visit the home of Carl Barnes. Born in 1928 in the
Oklahoma Panhandle, Barnes was fascinated as
a child by the tales of his Cherokee grandfather.
Like the Haudenosaunee, the Cherokee had a
rich agricultural tradition—but one that had
faded. Barnes worked his family farm and used
his spare time to collect the seeds of ancient vari-
eties from across North America. By the 1990s he
had thousands of types of corn, beans, squashes,
and other crops.
Barnes, who died in 2016, willed his collection
to friends, who contacted Braiding the Sacred. A
year later, the collection began arriving on Onon-
daga land. Ferguson had the melancholy reali-
zation that “some of these seeds no longer have
their people—the people who grew them were
wiped out or absorbed into other tribes. The seeds
are here, but they’re like ghosts.” Now Braiding
the Sacred is working with more than a hundred
farmers in a dozen or so nations.
The younger generation is the key, Fergu-
son and others told me. I’d just seen students
at the Akwesasne Freedom School harvesting
in the fields. Founded in 1979, the Mohawk-
immersion school in northern New York is a
center of cultural resurgence—the Mohawk are
another of the Haudenosaunee’s six nations.
Taken to a Mohawk community farm on a cold
October day, the teenagers had fanned out into
the field, snapping off ears from the plants.
Unlike today’s hybrid corn, traditional vari-
eties grow to different heights—the students
were harvesting Mohawk shortnose maize,
usually from three to five feet tall. Typical
agricultural machinery can’t harvest it. The
kids, talking across the corn rows in English
and Mohawk, tossed the ears into a cart pulled
by a trailer.
Watching them like a proud grandfather was
Tom Kanatakeniate Cook, a Mohawk writer and
longtime activist—he’d been one of the origi-
nal stringers for Akwesasne News, the first pan-
Indigenous newspaper, in the 1960s. I asked him
if we were looking at a vision of the future. “I see
what you’re getting at,” he said. “But this isn’t the
future—this is happening now.”

ROSEMARY WARDLEY AND PATRICIA HEALY, NGM STAFF

68 SOURCES: NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA; U.S. CENSUS BUREAU; SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
Chapter Five
ALASKA
(U.S.)

BRINGING BUFFALO BACK

Siksikaitsitapi • Montana
CANADA
ENLARGED
IT WAS WINTER CAMP in deep snow, and the BELOW

Siksikaitsitapi had no food. As the sun set, one

young wife went looking for firewood. In a copse SIKSIKAITSITAPI
by a river, she heard chirping from a tree. In a ancestral territory
fork in the tree was a stone. The stone gave her U N I TE D S TATES
songs. Teach your elders to sing these songs, it
said, and I will provide for all of you.
That night the Siksikaitsitapi elders came to
MEXI CO
her tipi. Everyone was faint with hunger but still
Historic range
sang the songs. A storm came up, burying the of American bison
tipis in snow. But when families dug themselves
out the next morning, they saw buffalo walking
through the camp. History and herds
I first heard the story of the buffalo stone on The culture of the Siksikaitsitapi (Black-
a bluff above Two Medicine River, in northwest foot) is intertwined with buffalo, a
Montana—a place where the Siksikaitsitapi keystone prairie species sacred to nations
have gathered for centuries. Imprinted in the of the northern plains. Millions of bison
soil were scores of rings formed by laying stones once roamed North America but were
almost killed off by hunters in the late
on the edges of buffalo-hide tipis to hold their
19th century. Today many Native nations
edges down in the wind. I had been invited to a have restoration programs that allow
tribal buffalo harvest—one of several held every buffalo to roam free on their tribal lands.
year to teach Siksikaitsitapi children about the
animals’ role in their culture. In the cold, bright
March morning were elders offering prayers and
Siksikaitsitapi
songs and the tale of the buffalo stone, sage and (Blackfoot)
tobacco smoldering in a little cast-iron pan, Cultural Region
Siksika no. 146
wide-eyed kids in winter coats taking everything Canadian Indian reserve (Siksika)
U.S. federal Indian
in, three eagles wheeling above like a sign. reservation
The Siksikaitsitapi are a confederacy of four
nations, three in Canada—the Siksika (Blackfoot), A L B E R T A
the Kainai (Blood), and the Piikani (Peigan)—and
Peigan Timber Limit B (Piikani)
one in the United States, the Piikuni (Blackfeet).
The Piikani and Piikuni are branches of the same
culture, now split by the international border— Piikani no. 147
(Piikani)
known to the Siksikaitsitapi as the Medicine Line, Blood no. 148
Waterton (Kainai)
a mocking reference to the supposed power of a B.C. Lakes N.P.
border they don’t accept. Blood no. 148A (Kainai)
R

Not far from the ceremony was part of the tribal CANADA
O

UNITED STATES
C

buffalo herd, a few hundred animals lured by hay

K

Glacier
Y

scattered on the ground. I rode in a pickup toward Blackfeet

National (Aamskapi Piikuni)
M

them with two of their caretakers: Chazz Racine, Park

O

edicine
oM
leaning out of the passenger window with a gun, Tw
U
N

25 mi
and his cousin Rob Wagner, careful at the wheel.
TA

25 km
The buffalo slowly turned their heads to follow
IN

our progress. Their breath made clouds in the Badger-Two Medicine

S

proposed cultural
wintry air. Racine said he’d know which buffalo M O N T A N A
heritage area
was right when he saw it. He said that often an

ROSEMARY WARDLEY AND RILEY D. CHAMPINE, NGM STAFF

SOURCES: INDIGENOUS VISION; NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA; U.S. CENSUS BUREAU
At the Northwest Mon- old tradition, Indian
tana Fair and Rodeo in Relay has reimagined
Kalispell, Indian Relay the exuberant bare-
team members hang back riding style and
out at the stables. intimate human-animal
A new version of an relations of the past.
Piikani
Montana

WHAT DOES
SOVEREIGNTY
MEAN TO YOU?
‘Indian Relay
is ours, all Native.
Nobody in the
world can take
it, like they did
everything else.’
DUANE KEMMER
Indian Relay Racer

HUGGING A HORSE from his

Inii Yawmahka (Buffalo Runners) team,
Kemmer says Indian Relay is more
than a sport. It’s a way to connect
with his son Cliff (far right, in race
regalia) and his seven other children
and to pass on his heritage. Kemmer
started racing in 1990 but now mostly
helps his children compete. From
time to time, though, he still rides.
In a recent race, a horse threw a shoe
that hit him in the forehead. Despite
the blood running down his face,
Kemmer kept riding. “This is Indian
Relay,” he says. “You don’t stop.”
WE ARE HERE 73
The Siksikaitsitapi
have raised buffalo
in Montana since the
mid-1970s, but system-
atic restoration began
there only in 2009
on the Blackfeet Indian
Reservation. Today
they have almost a
thousand animals,
and meat is available
at the reservation
grocery. But to buffalo
program director
Ervin Carlson, the
larger goal is to re-
create Siksikaitsitapi
landscapes—ecosys-
tems teeming with
free-ranging buffalo.

animal presented itself to him—it was choos-
ing to give its life. The Rocky Mountains, peaks
agleam with snow, rose from the horizon like a
cupped, protective hand.
A cluster of buffalo ambled toward us. Then
a big bull stepped out and lowered itself to the
ground. The others moved away. The bull looked
straight at us. Racine’s gun had been blessed with
sage smoke. Its report was startlingly loud. The
bull slumped, dead in an instant.
“Did you see how it gave itself? Did you see
that?” Racine asked. The two men winched the
slain animal onto the back of a flatbed truck
and drove it to a paddock where, after a prayer
of thanks, the adults showed the children how
to remove the head and fur and entrails. The
stripped body was taken to a small butchering
facility on the reservation where a couple cut it
up with a reciprocating saw. Later it would be
distributed to the school and community.
Less than a mile from the tipi rings was a
steep hill, almost a cliff, its vertical face about
30 feet high: a buffalo jump. Hunters enticed
buffalo onto the slope that approaches the cliff
top. “Drive lanes”—lines of cut brush and shout-
ing people—funneled the animals uphill. They
didn’t see the edge until too late. People waiting
below dispatched any that survived. Genera-
tions of Siksikaitsitapi had hunted there. When
I walked to the bottom, I saw a foot-thick layer
of bones: the relationship of the Siksikaitsitapi
and the buffalo inscribed on the earth.
Ecologists call bison, as buffalo are also known,
a keystone species: an organism that the prairie
ecosystem revolves around. But buffalo are more
than that, said Leroy Little Bear, the Kainai leader

74 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

and law professor. “It’s a keystone for our culture,
our songs, our stories, our ceremonies—they are
all connected to that animal.” Like corn for the
Haudenosaunee, buffalo to the Siksikaitsitapi
are a source of identity even more than they are
food. A landscape with buffalo was Siksikaitsitapi
space, warm and inviting.
Siksikaitsitapi space was called wilderness by
Europeans, but it was as domesticated as the
English countryside. In spring and fall Indige-
nous land managers set fire to it. Flames raced
through the prairie at stunning speed, leav-
ing miles of blackened land. The burns killed
young trees and shrubs that otherwise would
have overtaken the savannas. Prairie grasses,
with their deep roots, survived and regrew. Bison
are attracted to new growth. Centuries of Native
torches transformed the western flatlands into
so many huge pastures: utopia for bison.
By now, what happened to them is famil-
iar: the terrible, wasteful slaughter, part of it a
deliberate attempt to starve out Native societies
that depended on them. As late as the Civil War,
millions of bison walked the prairies. But when
the Smithsonian Institution released the first
ever bison census in 1889, there were only 85
free-roaming bison in the entire United States. A
few hundred more remained in Canada. In a sin-
gle generation, abundance had become absence.
Along with the loss of the buffalo came the loss
of land. The loss includes what became the east-
ern half of Glacier National Park, which the U.S.
bought in return for promises that the Siksikaitsi-
tapi would always be able to use the land. Yet
again, the promises weren’t kept.
From Alberta to Oklahoma, scores of organiza-
tions are now trying to repopulate the grasslands
with their original inhabitants. One of the most
important steps occurred in 2014, when eight
Indigenous nations agreed to a treaty for “co-
operation, renewal and restoration” of the buf-
falo. Largely masterminded by Little Bear, the
treaty committed its signatories to using their
lands to create large, free-roaming buffalo herds.
The treaty, said Amethyst First Rider, “would
empower the tribes—not anybody outside, not
the government, but the tribes—to have relation-
ships.” First Rider, Little Bear’s wife, was a key
organizer of the Siksikaitsitapi buffalo program.
Today the treaty has 30 signatory nations. Its
long-term goal is to create a network of lands
where the animals can roam freely, ignoring
state boundaries and the Medicine Line. In
legal terms, such terrain would have shared or
plural sovereignty, with much of the title in non-
Native hands but effective control often in Native
hands. This anomalous status is likely to become
increasingly common on Turtle Island—the
Tla-o-qui-aht tribal parks, under de facto man-
agement of that nation, are a sign of the future.
When I visited Saya Masso at his office, the
walls were covered with maps and photographs
of his homeland. At one point he showed me
Meares Island and said that the Tla-o-qui-aht
had preserved it for everyone. I asked him how
he would describe the landscape they were pro-
tecting. “Ours,” he said. j
Charles C. Mann is the author of 1491, about the
Americas before Columbus. Kiliii Yüyan, informed
by his Chinese and Nanai heritage, photographs
the human relationship with the land and the sea.
WE ARE HERE 75
WHY CITIES ARE
 COYOTES, BEARS,
RACCOONS, AND OTHER
ANIMALS ARE ADAPTING
TO URBAN LIFE IN
SAVVY WAYS AS THEIR
HABITATS SHRINK.

GOING WILD

B Y C H R I S T I N E D E L L ’A M O R E
PHOTOGRAPHS BY COREY ARNOLD

77
A black bear emerges
from his den under
an abandoned house
in South Lake Tahoe,
California. This densely
populated resort town
offers bears plenty
of garbage and other
food for less effort than
in the wild. As a result,
these urban bears
are about 25 percent
heavier than bears
living in wild areas.

PREVIOUS PHOTO

A radio-collared
coyote crosses
a railroad bridge in
Chicago, home to
as many as 4,000 of
the western canines.
Researchers are
discovering that city
animals are often A R
craftier at tackling
challenges than their
rural counterparts.
In San Francisco’s
Golden Gate Park,
raccoons stand at
attention at the arrival
of a resident who
regularly brings them
food—despite laws
against the practice.
Raccoons that become
reliant on human food
are more likely to
spread disease, get hit
by cars, and die when
the deliveries end.
AT FIRST GLANCE,
it’s a scene that plays out daily in cities across America. A U.S.
Postal Service carrier wearing a royal blue bucket hat steps out
of his mail truck and strides across the street, letters in hand.
That much is unremarkable. But this postman either doesn’t
notice or doesn’t seem to care that a hefty black bear, likely a
young male, is sitting on his haunches a few yards away, vigor-
ously scratching his shedding winter coat.
Immediately to the left, Interstate 240 roars behind a chain-link
fence, apparently just white noise to the bruin, which eventually
lopes down the sidewalk deeper into this neighborhood barely
a half mile from downtown Asheville, North Carolina.
Along the highway, a team of researchers with the North Caro-
lina Urban/Suburban Bear Study is captivated by another discov-
ery: a deep hollow inside a gnarled silver maple tree. Bear N209,
a radio-collared female that’s among more than a hundred bears
being tracked in the study, hibernated there over the winter,
despite the constant rush of vehicles mere feet away.
The project is now in its eighth year, and yet “these bears still
surprise me,” Colleen Olfenbuttel, the state’s black bear and fur-
bearer biologist, shouts over the din of traffic. She holds a ladder
steady as a colleague scrambles inside the tree and measures the
den. It’s the biggest tree den Olfenbuttel has seen in her 23 years
of studying black bears. “They’re so much more adaptable than
we give them credit for.”
Indeed, it’s hard to imagine that black bears would take so well
to living in Asheville. In this progressive city of about 95,000 nes-
tled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, bears shuffle down residential
streets in broad daylight and clamber onto people’s decks and
front porches. Some Ashevillians have embraced their ursine
neighbors, and nearly every person you talk with has a video of
their most recent bear encounter on their phone.
The advent of the city bear in Asheville and elsewhere stems
The National
from a combination of trends, including changes in land use and
Geographic Society,
the tempting buffets available when living near people. These committed to illumi-
factors have boosted North America’s black bear population to nating and protecting
the wonder of our
nearly 800,000. At the same time, sprawling cities and suburbs
world, has funded
have swallowed up large swaths of bear habitat, leaving the ani- Explorer Corey Arnold’s
mals little choice but to adapt to living with human neighbors. work about raccoons
since 2019.
It’s a phenomenon happening in urban areas across the United
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY
States and around the world, and it’s not unique to black bears.
Many mammals that eat a wide variety of foods are moving in

82 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
and changing their behaviors as they learn urban Biologists examine surrounding moun-
survival skills. a sedated bear near tains. Residents are
downtown Asheville, invited to observe the
As more scientists study the creatures right North Carolina, which research and learn how
under our noses, a consistent message is emerg- has seen an influx to minimize conflicts
ing: Many species are adapting to urban life in of bears from the with bears.
unprecedented ways. Coyotes look before cross-
ing a street. Black bears know when it’s trash
day. Raccoons figure out how to yank bungee their natural diets to include human foods and
cords off trash cans. shrank their home ranges to much smaller areas.
In 2020 a review of 83 urban wildlife studies The more we understand the animals living in
across six continents found that a whopping 93 our midst, ecologists say, the better we can get
percent of citified mammals behaved differently along with these urban newcomers.
from their rural peers. Most of these animals—as
diverse as European rabbits, wild boars, rhesus behind a strip of fast-food
I N A WO O D E D A R E A
macaques, and beech martens—became active restaurants and hotels in Asheville, Jennifer
at night to avoid people. They also expanded Strules and two colleagues haul a culvert trap—a

WHY CITIES ARE GOING WILD 83

barrel-shaped steel cage that humanely captures
black bears—into place near a hotel parking lot.
They’re hoping to catch a mother bear with three
cubs that lives in the area.
Strules, a fisheries, wildlife, and conservation
biology Ph.D. student at North Carolina State
University, opens a box of day-old baked goods—
irresistible bait for an animal with a nose sharper
than a bloodhound’s. The team smears cupcake
frosting on the sides of the trap and tosses in
some doughnuts and cinnamon rolls. Should
their quarry get trapped, the scientists would
anesthetize the mother bear, which had been
captured once before, and replace its radio collar.
Data collected from more than a hundred
radio-collared bears during the first phase of the
84 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Urban/Suburban Bear Study, led by wildlife biol-
ogist Nicholas Gould, revealed intriguing differ-
ences between urban and rural bruins. Female
city bears aged a year to a year and a half old
weighed nearly twice as much as their country
counterparts. Some two-year-old urban females
produced cubs, but none of the rural bears of the
same age reproduced. However, 40 percent of
the city bears died during the four-year study,
with vehicle strikes the leading cause. At this
stage, researchers say, it’s unclear whether city
living is a boon or a bust for Asheville’s bears.
Other studies paint a less ambiguous pic-
ture. Like the bears in Asheville, urban bears
in Durango and Aspen, Colorado, as well as in
Lake Tahoe, Nevada, weigh more and have more

Cubs cavort in the
backyard of Ashe-
ville residents Kay
and David Carter, who
put up a tire swing for
the bears’ enjoyment.
“Asheville is very toler-
ant of bears,” says wild-
life biologist Colleen
Olfenbuttel. “But my
worry is they’re going
to love them to death.”
cubs, but their young rarely survive, resulting in
net population declines. Seeing fat bears with
a bunch of cubs may give the impression that
urban growth and suburban sprawl benefit the
animals, but the reality is different.
Neither is it true that humans and bears
always live in harmony—even in open-minded
Asheville, where bears have killed pets and
injured at least one person in recent years.
In 2020 a mother bear defending her cubs
attacked Valerie Patenotte’s dog, which later
died. “We understand everyone has to coexist,”
says Patenotte as we stand on her back deck
overlooking the distant mountains. “We just
want more space from bears.”
As if on cue, a bear family appears below us.
One cub climbs a tree; another scampers about
its hulking mother, which watches us warily.
To learn how residents can safely coexist with
their untamed neighbors, Strules is planning
an experiment. Two neighborhoods will be the
focus of an educational campaign about Bear-
Wise, a soon-to-be-nationwide initiative that
encourages bear-conscious practices such as
keeping pets leashed, securing garbage, remov-
ing bird feeders, and not approaching or feed-
ing the animals. Two other neighborhoods will
receive no educational material and serve as
experiment controls.
By tracking radio-collared bears in all four
neighborhoods, Strules hopes to learn whether
promoting the BearWise best practices changes
residents’ behavior and reduces the number of
nuisance reports. In Durango, researchers went
a step further and distributed more than a thou-
sand bear-resistant trash cans. Homes that used
the receptacles experienced a 60 percent drop
in problem encounters.
But some people want bears in their back-
yards—and none more so than Janice Husebo,
who considers them part of her family. For 22
years she’s attracted hungry bruins onto the deck
of her home northeast of downtown Asheville,
where they help themselves to bowls of birdseed.
“I’ve got friends calling me the bear whis-
perer,” Husebo says as we huddle at her door,
watching a mother bear and her twin cubs amble
around the porch. “For her to lay here and nurse
her cub while I’m talking to her … ” she says, her
voice trailing off with emotion.
But wildlife officials warn that feeding bears
increases conflicts and risk of injury, which
decreases tolerance for the animals—two rea-
sons a local county ordinance prohibits the
practice. Strules, who recognizes bears’ beloved
status among Asheville residents like Husebo,
hopes her research will offer guidance on the best
way to live with the animals—both for them and
for us. “Wildlife belongs to everyone,” Strules
says, “but we want to keep bears wild.”
have reclaimed about half
W H I L E B L AC K B E A R S
their former range and now live in some 40
states, coyotes—native to the Great Plains—have
taken the U.S. by storm in recent decades. They
now can be found in every state except Hawaii
and most major cities. The metropolis most
synonymous with the urban coyote is Chicago,
home to as many as 4,000 of the animals.
WHY CITIES ARE GOING WILD 85
86 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
 NO ONE
PREDICTED
THAT BLACK
BEARS WOULD
TAKE SO WELL
TO LIVING
IN ASHEVILLE,
WHERE THEY
SHUFFLE DOWN
RESIDENTIAL
STREETS IN BROAD
DAYLIGHT AND
CLAMBER ONTO
PEOPLE’S DECKS.

Relaxing in their
“bear den,” Janice
and Janney Husebo
have developed
strong attachments
to the black bears
that frequent their
property near
Asheville. A fenced
yard is the dogs’
domain and helps
keep the peace.

WHY CITIES ARE GOING WILD 87

 THE ABILITY
TO HIDE MOST
ANYWHERE
AND EAT MOST
ANYTHING—
INCLUDING
GARBAGE AND
SMALL PETS—IS
KEY TO URBAN
WILDLIFE’S
SUCCESS.

Clockwise from top

left: In Chicago a
coyote hides in the
hollow of a stone wall.
A Dumpster-diving
bear chows down on
garbage in South Lake
Tahoe. In San Francisco,
Misto the dog wears
a spiked vest designed
to deter hungry
coyotes, and a mother
raccoon emerges
from the six-inch space
between buildings
where she is raising
her young.

88 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
WHY CITIES ARE GOING WILD 89
 Stan Gehrt, a wildlife ecologist with Ohio
State University and the Max McGraw Wildlife
Foundation, began studying Chicago’s coyotes in
2000, not long after the animals started showing
up there. Back then, Gehrt thought his project
would last a year. More than two decades later,
he’s still at it. “We consistently underestimate
this animal and its ability to adjust and adapt,”
Gehrt says. “They push the boundaries of what
we perceive to be constraints.”
On a spring morning in the Chicago suburb of
Schaumburg, three researchers trudge through
marshy land behind a housing subdivision.
They’re looking for the den and pups of coyote
581, a radio-collared female. Suddenly, a pup’s
squeal pierces the hum of highway traffic. The
group scatters, crashing through cattails and
peeking into hillside burrows.
Moments later, senior field technician Lauren
Ross shouts. She’s found a weeks-old pup sitting
in the tallgrass, its pale belly still swollen with
his mother’s milk. Ross gently lifts the young
male and examines him, pulling a tuft of hair
for genetic analysis and inserting a small micro-
chip called a pit tag between his shoulder blades.
The plump little pup is quiet and still during the
exam. The mother will return for him once the
team is gone, Ross says.
At the beginning of Gehrt’s research, he
thought coyotes would be restricted to parks
and green spaces, but he was wrong. “Now we
have coyotes everywhere—every neighborhood,
every suburban city, and downtown.”
Indeed, coyotes have succeeded despite our
best efforts to eradicate them. At least 400,000
are killed each year, about 80,000 by a federal
predator control program primarily out West.
Vehicle strikes are the main cause of death for
Chicago’s coyotes, but the animals have learned
to avoid cars and can even read stoplights.
Adding to their adaptability is their flexible
diet. Coyotes will eat just about anything, from
shoe leather to fruit (they can climb fruit trees).
It stands to reason that coyotes living in green
spaces throughout the metropolitan area would
eat mostly natural foods, such as rabbits and
rodents, and those living downtown would rely
on food derived from humans, including trash
and domestic pets. But that’s often not the case,
says Gehrt. “Variability is the primary pattern.”
Coyotes have a talent for scratching out a liv-
ing pretty much anywhere. But are they genet-
ically built for life as urbanites, or are they
90 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
quickly adapting, in their classic wily fashion?
It could be a mix—what Christopher Schell, an
urban ecologist at the University of California,
Berkeley, calls adaptive plasticity. That is, coy-
otes could be taking advantage of their inher-
ent ability to adjust to new environments while
becoming better at living in them over time.
“Coyotes are like an AI system, learning faster
than humans created it and taking over the
world,” Schell jokes.
Schell and Julie Young, a wildlife biologist
with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are
studying how various diets given to captive
coyotes at the National Wildlife Research Cen-
ter in Millville, Utah, could change the animals’
behavior. For example, they’ll compare a group
of coyotes eating a simulated urban diet—high
in carbs and sugar—with those eating a more
natural, high-protein diet. Their hypothesis is
that the coyotes eating human food will become
bolder around people, which is supported by
some anecdotal evidence.
“We’re following the age-old adage ‘You are
what you eat,’ ” Schell says. He and Young theo-
rize that a coyote that eats processed cereal, for
instance, will be hungrier and looking for food
much more frequently than one that eats a rab-
bit for breakfast. Though Gehrt has not found
such a connection in Chicago coyotes, he notes
that a reliance on human food does lead to more
conflict with people and their pets by reducing
the canines’ fear of people. In some places, such
as Southern California, 38 percent of urban coy-
otes’ diets consist of human food sources.
raccoons are expand-
L I K E C OYOT E S A N D B E A R S ,
ing throughout North American cities. In Wash-
ington, D.C., wildlife researchers Kate Ritzel
and Travis Gallo wanted to find out whether
raccoons living in the city are bolder and more
willing to take risks than those in rural areas.
They measured this by observing a raccoon’s
readiness to investigate an unfamiliar object—in
this case, bait buried inside a square of wooden
stakes. The researchers installed more than a
hundred automatic cameras throughout the city
and rural areas of neighboring Virginia.
On a muggy September morning at Fort Tot-
ten, a federally owned Civil War–era facility,
Gallo placed the smelly bait—“dead animals
in a jar,” he called it—while Ritzel strapped a
camera to a nearby tree. She would come back
in two weeks to see which animals had passed
 THE LOOP

GRANT
CHICAGO’S
Roosevelt Road
SOUTH
LOOP
PARK
Field
Museum
Shedd Aquarium
WILY COYOTES
Thriving in cities across the United States,
coyotes have become particularly adept at
Vacant lot that S. State Street navigating Chicago’s urban spaces. Coyotes
was one of
coyote 748’s typically have a home range of two to five
favorite
hunting spots
Soldier Field square miles, but developed areas force
them to roam farther for food. And unlike
Waldron Parking Deck their rural counterparts, urban coyotes
Using elevated First den, parking garage
are active at night to avoid humans.
ver

train tracks for Coyote 748—a radio-collared alpha male

movement
Ri

g o tracked for five months in 2014—guarded

ca
hi his den atop a parking garage by day
C

E. Cermak Road and hunted the city for rabbits by night.

McCormick Place
Convention Center Locations of Coyote 748 (February to June 2014)

Day Night

55
94 90
SOU

C H I C A G O
S. Michigan Ave.

The range of coyotes Coyote range

H SH

has dramatically expansion

SOUTHWEST METRA RAILWAY

ORE

expanded since 1900.

2016
M

1950
ETR

B
A

Before 1900
U

BRIDGEPORT
31s
ROCK ISLAND METRA

DOUGLAS
t St
. Har
‘L’ RED LINE

Second den, near train tracks

bor
‘L’ GREEN LINE

CA N ADA
H
A
S. MLK Dr.

Chicago
L
M

UNITED STATES
Guaranteed Rate Field
A
K
P

MEX.
S O U T H S I D E
E
A

Central
90 America
R

94
M
K

Urban ranging
I

Coyotes farther away from

C

the center of the city can find

H

what they need to survive in

a much smaller area, whereas
I
S.

this coyote regularly traveled

Lak

more than four miles from its

eS

A
ho

dens in search of food. N

reD

ve
ri

Danger in the city

Vehicle strikes are the leading
cause of death among urban
coyotes. Coyote 748 roamed
along train tracks, or between
Foray onto
Lake Shore Drive and the
the frozen lake
water’s edge, to avoid cars, KENWOOD
but he was found with fatal
injuries likely caused from
a vehicle strike. 2000 ft

500 m

SOREN WALLJASPER, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: STANLEY GEHRT, URBAN COYOTE RESEARCH
PROJECT; CITY OF CHICAGO DATA PORTAL; ENVIROATLAS, US EPA; OPENSTREETMAP
92 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
 COYOTES
HAVE TAKEN THE
U.S. BY STORM IN
RECENT DECADES.
THEY NOW CAN BE
FOUND IN EVERY
STATE EXCEPT
HAWAII AND MOST
MAJOR CITIES.

Coyote 1288, a young

male monitored by
researchers, lived
behind a downtown
post office along
the South Branch of
the Chicago River.
A few months after
this photo was taken,
he was killed by a car.
Some urban coyotes
have learned to avoid
vehicles and even
heed stoplights before
crossing busy roads.

WHY CITIES ARE GOING WILD 93

through. She showed me her favorite video so
far: a feisty raccoon chasing off a fox. Months
later Ritzel’s data indicated that urban raccoons
are more exploratory than their country cous-
ins, taking more time to investigate the squares.
City animals also are more social, traveling in
pairs more often than their rural, more territorial
counterparts—suggesting that urban raccoons
are adapting their behavior to city life. The next
goal is to “suss out if there are any evolutionary
changes” under way, Ritzel says.
Sarah Benson-Amram first
W H E N ZO O LO G I ST
started looking into raccoon behavior and cog-
nition about a decade ago, she figured such a
common species would have been studied thor-
oughly. After all, the bushy-tailed omnivores are
pop culture icons, jokingly dubbed trash pan-
das. Instead, Benson-Amram was shocked to
find almost nothing in the scientific literature.
A few researchers in the early 1900s had tried to
study the clever animals but gave up when their
subjects kept breaking out of their cages.
So far, she says, her research has confirmed
the raccoon’s crafty reputation. In an experi-
ment called reversal learning, she presented rac-
coons, coyotes, and skunks with a box equipped
with a button or foot pedal that, when pressed,
releases food. After the animals figured out how
to get the food, the researchers would switch
the buttons and pedals, forcing them to tweak
their strategy. Most of the raccoons solved the
problem on the first night, while only one of six
coyotes engaged with the box—and not until the
44th night of testing. Once the coyote was com-
fortable engaging with the object, it could win
the prize just as well as the raccoons and skunks.
Urban coyotes have a different survival strat-
egy from raccoons, says Benson-Amram, now at
the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
“They’re successful by avoiding humans, rather
than exploiting them.”
Benson-Amram’s study bolsters the theory
that some urban mammals rely on their cogni-
tive abilities to adapt to city life and that when
they’re presented with an obstacle, they can
innovate on the spot.
Kelly Lambert, a behavioral neuroscientist at
the University of Richmond, has compared the
brains of captive raccoons known to be problem
solvers with those that were deemed less inno-
vative. She found that the innovators have more
specialized nerve cells in their hippocampus, a
94 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Window bars provide Citified raccoons are
a handy ladder for getting better at solv-
the mother raccoon ing urban challenges,
and her three kits that researchers have found,
camped on the roof which suggests that
of Michelle Ackerman’s they may be evolving
home in San Francisco. into smarter animals.
center of learning and memory. “That kind of
blew my mind,” says Lambert, whose research
has also found that raccoon brains are more like
primates’ than any other species. But as is the
case with coyotes and many other urban ani-
mals, more studies are needed to determine if
raccoons are evolving to be smarter.
Still, Benson-Amram is intrigued that our
attempts to deter raccoons may be fueling
an innovation arms race. “It’s possible we’re
actually creating smarter animals,” she says,
“because we’re presenting them with increas-
ingly difficult problems to solve.”
urban wildlife was mostly
U N T I L R E C E N T LY,
ignored in scientific research. This is partly
because such species are considered pests
unworthy of our attention—or not wildlife at all.
“We live on a planet that’s rapidly urbanizing,
and it’s silly for us to say, Oh, we don’t care about
animals in urban landscapes,” says Seth Magle,
director of the Urban Wildlife Institute at Chi-
cago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. “Whether we like it or
not, we live with wildlife.”
While much of urban ecology focuses on how
to minimize conflicts, we forget that our expe-
riences with wildlife often are delightful, Magle
says. “Another part of coexisting with animals
has to do with celebrating these moments.”
My moment came on a summer morning in
Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Park Golf Course.
I was walking the hilly back nine with a group of
biologists, looking for coyote scat, or droppings.
As we reached the top of a hill, we were startled
to see a coyote and pup standing below us. We
gazed at each other in mutual surprise. The adult
coyote, its back golden in the sun, remained
motionless while the pup pranced around. A few
seconds later, the adult quietly slipped into the
nearby woods, the little one hanging back for a
last look before disappearing into the shadows. j
Christine Dell’Amore is a senior animals editor
and a fan of the underdog—especially coyotes.
Photographer Corey Arnold first volunteered at
an urban wildlife rehabilitation center at age 10.
BY ADI RENALDI

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y A J I S T YAWA N
 AS THE

NORTH COAST OF

JAVA , I N D O N E S I A ,

F A D E S A W A Y,

RESIDENTS

STRUGGLE TO

KEEP THEIR

HOMES—AND

T H E I R H I S T O R Y—

FROM THE

S A M E FAT E .

97
Hanging on is hard probably be gone
in Demak Regency in next year or so.” The
Central Java. In Tim- coast is sinking up
bulsloko, a farming to four inches a year,
village once sur- partly because of
rounded by rice fields, groundwater pumping.
residents recently built
a boardwalk to keep PREVIOUS PHOTO
their feet dry when After a high tide
the tide rolls in. “We flooded the village
don’t know how long of Purwosari Timur in
it will last,” says Ashar, 2020, Turadi, 54, used
the village leader. “It’ll soil to raise his floor.
 TO BURY
MUKMINAH
LAST YEAR,
THEY HAD
TO BRING IN
THE DIRT BY
ROWBOAT.

in Timbul-
T H E C E M E T E RY WA S U N D E R WAT E R
sloko, a village some 250 miles east of Jakarta,
the Indonesian capital. On maps the village
looks like it’s still on the north coast of Central
Java, but the land around it has lately been taken
by the Java Sea. The cemetery, a few hundred The main road out
yards outside the village, had been submerged of Bedono, a village
even at low tide since 2020. There was a dead in Demak Regency,
is flooded at high tide,
tree in the middle of it, surrounded by dozens so children from the
of headstones sticking out of the water. village ride a raft to
Mukminah was in her early 70s when she died. the mainland to go
to school. More than
She would have remembered, as surviving elders half of Bedono’s resi-
do well, how green and prosperous their village dents have abandoned
once was. Paddy fields stretched as far as the eye their homes and moved
to higher ground.
could see. Villagers grew coconuts, red onions,
chilies, cabbages, carrots, potatoes.
“Whatever seeds you threw to the ground,
they would grow,” recalls Ashar, the village
leader. He’s lean and muscular—and only 39—
but he too remembers the better days. The water
has come on fast in just the past two decades.
The north coast of Java is sinking, and the
sea is rising. In Jakarta, a city of more than
10 million, as much as 40 percent of the land
is below sea level. But Demak Regency, which
includes Timbulsloko, is one of the hardest hit
areas. While global warming is raising sea levels
worldwide by around an eighth of an inch a year,
the land here is sinking as much as four inches.
Demak is losing more than a thousand acres,
about half a percent of its area, each year.
In Timbulsloko, after rice crops failed in
the 1990s, the villagers shifted to aquaculture,
breeding milkfish and tiger prawns in brackish
ponds. They had a few good years, but by the
mid-2000s, the ponds too had been swamped.
Now the “mainland” is more than a mile away,
and the villagers travel there by rowboat. To stay
dry in their houses, they’ve installed wooden
decks or raised the floors as high as six feet. They
bend over under the low ceilings of their “dwarf
houses,” as they call them. Of more than 400
families that once lived here, about 170 are left.
The cemetery is one of the last things that
connect them with their history.
Seven men were tasked to prepare the burial
ground for Mukminah. They dug into the mud
for about an hour, building a dike around the
hole. Their hoes struck the bones of an earlier
burial; they kept digging. Shirtless and soaked,
they dug until the high tide filled the hole.
Mukminah was buried seven hours later, in
the night, when the tide had ebbed and the water
in the hole was only ankle-deep. She was buried
under more than a ton of loose, light-brown soil
that the men had rowed over from the mainland.
S I N K I N G FA ST 103
 LOST Population density
in Indonesia
ASIA

Low High INDONESIA

GROUND Location of
Nusantara,
planned
AUS.
new capital
Java is the world’s most populous island,
with 150 million inhabitants, and it BORNEO

SU
has some of the worst land subsidence

M
AT
I N SULAWESI
on Earth. Parts of its northern coast are

R
Java D O N

A
NEW
dropping three inches or more a year, AREA Sea E S I A GUINEA
ENLARGED
causing buildings to tilt and roads Jakarta J AVA
to crack. A few coastal villages are 500 mi
chronically flooding even at low tide, I N D I A N O C E A N 500 km
and homes are being lost to the sea.

10 mi
N 10 km

10,500,000 Tar
um
2020 POPULATION
WITHIN CITY LIMITS
Indramayu
Pamanukan Eretan
Ci

Bekasi Wetan
liw

Tangerang -1 2,500,000 A L L U -0.5 Karangampel

V I A L
ung

1,900,000 -1.1 -1.1 Karawang P L A I N

-1.5 -0.5 -1.2
-0.4

uk
Cikampek -1.7

Man
-1.8 inches
Depok Purwakarta -1.0 Cirebon
2,100,000
Jatiluhur J 333,000
-0.5
Res.

A sinking history
Cirata
Res. Heavy developments A
Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, has sunk Researchers previously thought
more than six feet during the past Bandung the city of Cirebon was not sub-
century. This land subsidence, along 2,400,000 siding. But during their recent
with pollution and overcrowding, is study period, they noticed one
a primary reason that Indonesia is area—which saw increased con-
creating a new capital city—on Borneo. struction in 2017—begin to sink.

1990
The coast of Demak
Regency, east of Sema-
Java Sea
rang, once supported
extensive paddy fields
irrigated by the fresh-
water of rivers flowing
to the sea and ground-
water from below.
Timbulsloko

Bedono Demak
TURA
R PAN AD)
JALU COAST RO
RT H
(NO

Sayung

Kaliwungu
SEMARANG 2 mi
2 km

RILEY D. CHAMPINE, NGM STAFF; ÁLVARO VALIÑO

SOURCES: TEGUH SIDIQ, IRWAN GUMILAR, AND IRWAN MEILANO, BANDUNG INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY;
WORLDPOP; NASA; FACEBOOK AND CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL EARTH SCIENCE INFORMATION NETWORK
 The alluvial plain is
made of soft river
sediments deposited
over thousands of
years, which naturally Groundwater Heavy loads Flood-control
compact under extraction on soft soil actions
their own weight. Thousands of wells Growing coastal Engineers dam and
But increasing bring clean water cities are steadily confine rivers to
HOW human activity has to the surface. But adding large manage flooding—yet
dramatically sped
DEVELOPMENT up the sinking,
with excessive
pumping, the soil
buildings. Their
weight puts more
this can prevent the
rivers from naturally
ACCELERATES worsening coastal
inundation.
compacts, resulting
in subsidence.
pressure on the
compressible land.
spreading sediments
that build up the plain.
SINKING

Measuring subsidence
Selected Using satellite data, Indonesian
subsidence researchers compiled a detailed Tayu
location survey of land subsidence rates
along the coast from 2016 to 2020. Mt. Muria
Annual rate This map highlights areas that 5,331 ft
in inches sank the most over that period. 1,625 m
-1.3
DEMAK REGENCY
1,200,000

BELOW Kudus
IMAGES ills
-0.7 ta ra H
Timbulsloko Demak a p ur U
-1.0 K
307,000 Sera
Tegal Kendal n g
274,000 -1.5
-1.2 ALLUVIA
Brebes L PLAIN
Bo

Semarang
d

1,700,000
ri

-0.9
-0.8
V -1.4
A -2.1
-1.8 Geology matters
-1.3 -2.3 The southern part of the city of
Fastest rate Semarang is built on stable volcanic
observed foothills that aren’t sinking. Some
-3.8 inches -3.1 places there are less than a mile from
-2.1 Mt. Slamet Mt. Sumbing neighborhoods that are dropping
S e r a y u M o u n t
11,247 ft r t h a i n s 11,060 ft more than three inches a year.
3,428 m N o 3,371 m

2020
The coastline frag-
mented as the Java Sea
Java Sea
inundated 8,000 acres
of Demak Regency,
submerging agricultural
land in salt water and
making it unusable for
years to come. Timbulsloko
Demak
Bedono
TURA
R PAN AD)
Planned seawall JALU COAST RO
and toll road RT H
(NO

Sayung

Kaliwungu
S E M A R A N G 2 mi
2 km
Some 400 trucks an
hour pass through
Demak on Jalur Pantura,
the North Coast Road,
a major artery built in
the 19th century by
Dutch colonial author-
ities. It now floods
regularly. The Central
Java government
is raising a 17-mile
stretch, putting it on
a seawall that will pro-
tect the land behind
it—but not the many
seaside villages.

“You can’t bury the body with mud and
water,” Ashar says. “So we have to buy fresh soil.
“It isn’t easy to live here, as you can see,” he
goes on. Ashar can’t afford to leave, because
nobody wants to buy his dwarf house in the sea.
The elders don’t want to leave. They want to live
with their memories, close to their ancestors.
After the funeral, the villagers pleaded with
the Demak government for help. In the fall,
it provided funding for a backhoe to scrape
enough mud off the shallow seafloor to raise the
whole cemetery five feet. That will buy the dead
in Timbulsloko a little more time.
has around 1.2 mil-
D E M A K R E G E N C Y T O D AY
lion inhabitants, a small fraction of Jakarta’s
population. But in the late 15th century it was an
independent Muslim sultanate that dominated
the north coast. The Grand Mosque, built during
that period as a center of Islamic teaching, still
stands in the town of Demak. Thousands of pil-
grims a year visit the tombs of the Wali Songo, or
“nine saints,” who helped spread Islam on Java.
Demak is known as the City of the Saints.
The North Coast Road, built in the 19th cen-
tury along the length of Java by the Dutch colo-
nial government, runs through Demak Regency.
It’s still a major artery carrying some 400 trucks
an hour. Factories lining the road produce every-
thing from fertilizer and textiles to electronic
devices. But tidal floods now repeatedly inundate
it, at great cost.

106 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

There are several causes of the floods—and of
the fact that Central Java has lost 20,000 acres
of land, a lot of it in Demak. Sea-level rise due
to global warming is one factor. But land subsid-
ence is a greater one.
Java’s north coastal plain consists of dozens
to hundreds of feet of alluvial sediment, depos-
ited over millennia by rivers flowing from inland
mountains. The sediment sinks as it compacts
under its own weight, explains Aron Meltzner, a
geologist at the Earth Observatory of Singapore
at Nanyang Technological University.
“This is a very natural process,” Meltzner says.
“But because the river is bringing more sedi-
ment, as the existing sediment compacts, more
mud gets built on top and the delta stays above
water.” At least that’s what used to happen: As
the rivers jumped their banks during annual
floods, and as their channels migrated back and
forth through the soft mud, they spread sedi-
ment evenly across the plain.
The flooding, however, threatened modern
cities. In the late 19th century, the Dutch built
canals, levees, and sluice gates as flood con-
trols in the major cities, especially Jakarta and
Semarang, the capital of Central Java. Today the
levees and concrete embankments keep the riv-
ers from flooding—but also prevent them from
replenishing the plain. Instead, sediment falls to
the riverbed or shoots straight out to sea. That’s
one reason the north coast is sinking.
“Even in the absence of sea-level rise, just the
fact that we channelized the rivers and prevented
them from migrating means that the natural pro-
cess has been interrupted,” Meltzner says.
at the Bandung
H E R I A N D R E A S , A R E S E A RC H E R
Institute of Technology who studies the sink-
ing coast, says another factor is at work: massive
groundwater extraction, which is causing the
sediments to compact faster.
In Demak Regency alone, as of 2014, there
were almost 250,000 wells, some up to 650 feet
deep, in an area the size of Berlin. There proba-
bly are more wells by now; 2014 is the latest year
for which government data are available. Most
are private, but the Demak water authority has
also drilled a dozen deep wells. It uses them to
supplement river water and provide tap water
to more than 61,000 households in 59 villages,
out of 249 in the regency. In 2019 it distributed
at least 9.1 million cubic meters of groundwater.
For more than a decade, researchers say, the
local government has promoted groundwater as
the cheapest way to meet the pressing demand
for drinking water and sanitation. It’s clean and
requires no treatment plants, dams, or reser-
voirs. But using it here exacts a high price.
“People, especially the government, keep
blaming sea-level rise as the main cause” of the
loss of land in Demak, Andreas says. “But our
conclusion is that the main culprit turns out to
be decades of groundwater exploitation.”
Demak’s public water network still serves only
a minority of the regency’s population, and it
doesn’t reach Sayung District (which includes
Timbulsloko), where the worst subsidence is tak-
ing place. In the village of Sayung, residents have
drilled more than a dozen deep wells to supply
S I N K I N G FA ST 107
On August 17, 2021,
the 76th anniversary
of Indonesia’s inde-
pendence from the
Netherlands, children
in Timbulsloko com-
pete in Panjat Pinang,
a traditional slippery-
pole-climbing event.
The team that reaches
the flag at the top
gets a prize. Before
the flooding, the
pole used to be
planted vertically in
dry ground.
 JAVA’S SINKING CITIES
Land subsidence is worsening coastal
flooding on Java at a much faster
rate than sea-level rise. Worldwide
the problem of subsidence, which is
accelerated by population growth,
affects about a fifth of all major cities.

Global sea-level rise

0 0.1 inch per year

Land subsidence
average annual rate
for each city,
2016-2020

2
Jakarta
2 inches
current rate

Pekalongan
3 2.8 inches
INCHES (ACTUAL SIZE)

Semarang
3.1 inches
Depressing future
Should Semarang’s
current rate of
subsidence continue
for 30 more years,
4
parts of the city
will sink as much
as eight feet.

about 2,000 families. The water is stored in ele-

5 vated tanks and costs around 20 cents per cubic
meter, cheaper than the public network.
Historic losses
In previous decades,
“It’s been a good business, with good profit,”
sections of Jakarta says Munawir, the 41-year-old village leader, who
have seen rates of
subsidence exceeding
spends about $13 a month himself for water ser-
seven inches a year. vice. The 49-foot-deep well his father drilled in
From 1925 to 2015,
6 parts of the city
his backyard in the 1980s is unusable now, con-
dropped 13 feet. taminated by seawater.
“Of course we hope that the government can
provide a tap water network to prevent the sink-
ing” of the land, Munawir says. “But it will also
kill the already established local water business.”
7 The local government says drilling deep wells
Jakarta requires official permits and that unregistered
7.1 inches
maximum
wells will be shut down. But it hasn’t closed
historic rate
RILEY D. CHAMPINE, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: TEGUH SIDIQ, IRWAN GUMILAR, AND
IRWAN MEILANO, BANDUNG INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY; DELTARES

any in recent years. Qomarul Huda, head of the
Demak water authority, blamed water shortages
in the regency on farmers who draw too much
from rivers for irrigation. He declined to com-
ment on groundwater extraction.
As Demak’s population and industry continue
to grow, groundwater extraction will too. No one
is willing or able to invest the immense sums
needed to build an alternative.
provincial
F O R A D E C A D E , T H E C E N T R A L J AVA
government and nongovernmental organiza-
tions have been struggling to protect the coast
from erosion. The government claims to have
planted in excess of three million mangroves on
more than 900 acres since 2011, to buffer waves
Neighbors help the
Kaelani family of
Timbulsloko load their
furniture onto a boat
that will take it to
their new home on
drier ground. The
family, who first
came to the village
in 1983, have lost their
farmland. They now
make a living selling
fruit on the mainland.
and tides. The plan is to double that by 2023.
Meanwhile, environmental NGOs working
with local fisherfolk in Sayung District have
built miles of bamboo fences just offshore. The
fences act as permeable breakwaters that trap
sediment stirred up by waves, especially during
monsoon storms. They’re cheap and meant to
be temporary—the idea is to trap just enough
sediment for mangroves to take root—but they
collapse easily and often have to be repaired.
“We have yet to feel the impact of this coastal
engineering,” says Fadholi, a 36-year-old fisher-
man hired by an NGO to maintain a sediment
trap in the village of Bedono. “We haven’t seen
sediment build up here because the current
keeps washing it away.” The fences do act as
S I N K I N G FA ST 111
In May 2021, a day
before celebrating the
Eid al-Fitr holiday at
the end of Ramadan,
Timbulsloko villagers
visit the flooded public
cemetery to pray and
pay their respects at
the graves of their rel-
atives. The loss of land
threatens their homes
and livelihoods—
but also their links to
people they love.
Last fall the Demak
government provided
funding that allowed
Timbulsloko to hire an
excavator to scrape breeding grounds for mussels, however, which
mud from the seabed
and raise the ceme- residents collect and sell.
tery five feet. It’s now Researchers at Diponegoro University in
accessible on foot Semarang have tested other methods of coastal
even at high tide. Here
Sundari, 48, prays at protection. At Timbulsloko in 2012 they built
her husband’s grave. a seawall of concrete cylinders along 500 feet
of former coastline. Within two years, enough
sediment had built up behind the wall to grow
mangroves—which today stand up to 10 feet tall.
But concrete is too expensive to be a large-
scale solution, says Denny Nugroho Sugianto, an
This story was produced oceanography professor at Diponegoro. Where
and published by National waves are low enough, he advocates permeable
Geographic through breakwaters of bamboo and PVC pipe, more
a reporting partnership
with the United Nations durable than bamboo and still cheap.
Development Programme. But, he adds, “we haven’t solved the problem

114 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

of sinking land. So no matter how many break-
waters we build, they won’t be successful.”
The national government, as part of a strategic
effort to save vital assets and industrial zones, is
building a combined highway and seawall from
Semarang to the town of Demak, a distance of
17 miles. It’s expected to be finished in 2024 at
a cost of $532 million. But only small parts of
two villages will be protected. The move angers
residents of villages outside the wall, such as
Timbulsloko and Sayung, who feel their com-
munities are being left to drown.
Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo, a tall
53-year-old with graying hair and a boyish smile,
acknowledges the plan’s limitations. He says the
government simply can’t afford to build bigger
seawalls, as in the Netherlands, to protect more
of the coast. Huge pumping stations would be
needed to evacuate floodwaters from behind
the wall. The system would require mainte-
nance indefinitely. The government doesn’t
have the money, Pranowo says.
So what should people do in the flooding vil-
lages, the ones accessible only at low tide along
narrow footpaths, the ones where water laps at
the villagers’ feet in their living rooms?
“The last resort is to relocate to a safer place,”
says Pranowo, who’s expected to run for presi-
dent of Indonesia in 2024. “Or if they insist on
living there, they have to adapt to the environ-
ment by building stilt houses, for example. If
they want their land back just like the old times,
it’s impossible. It’s drowned now.”
is
I N C E N T R A L J AVA T H E M U S L I M T R A D I T I O N
to visit the cemetery in the late afternoon on
Thursdays. One recent Thursday Khusnuma-
rom, a 16-year-old high school student, made
his way to the cemetery in Timbulsloko.
Dressed in a traditional white shirt, black
songkok cap, and dark gray trousers, he walked
barefoot on a narrow, six-foot-high boardwalk,
nearly two miles long, that residents built last
year to replace the vanished roads. He made a
right turn down wooden stairs and crossed
a creek on the slippery, submerged road. The
tidal flood reached knee-deep, but his steps were
confident. On the other side he climbed back
onto the boardwalk and continued on.
When he reached the underwater cemetery,
the shadows had begun to fall. The dead tree
and the headstones were silhouetted against
the deep-orange sky. Khusnumarom found the
grave of his grandmother, Mukminah. He raised
his hands and began to pray.
Khusnumarom knows from bedtime stories,
including the ones Mukminah told him, how his
village used to be. The memories will die with the
older generation, and sooner or later the stories
too will fade. Like many other youths, Khusnu-
marom doesn’t plan to stay in Timbulsloko.
“I know what this village looked like,” he says.
“But we see and experience what it has now
become.” He’ll look for a job in the city when he
graduates. He wants to be a software engineer. j
Indonesian multimedia journalist Adi Renaldi
writes for publications around the world. Photog-
rapher Aji Styawan lives just a few miles from the
flood-prone villages he shot for this article.
S I N K I N G FA ST 115
 BY NINA STROCHLIC

PHOTOGRAPHS BY
A N D R E A F R A Z Z E T TA

REVIVING
THE ROAD
TO ROME
T H E A P P I A N W AY S Y M B O L I Z E D T H E

R O M A N E M P I R E ’ S M I G H T. N O W I TA LY I S R E S T O R I N G

T H E A N C I E N T H I G H W A Y, H O P I N G T O C R E A T E

A P I L G R I M A G E R O U T E T H R O U G H H I S T O R Y.

117
T THERE’S A MCDONALD’S on the outskirts of Rome
where, after ordering a pancetta-laden Big Mac,
you can peer through the glass floor and see—a
few yards below—flat, white paving stones of
an ancient Roman road and twisted skeletons
embedded in a 2,300-year-old gutter.
These are remnants of Europe’s first major
highway, the Appian Way. The route, begun in
312 B.C., meanders out of the city and across
southern Italy until it reaches the eastern port
city of Brindisi. It helped inspire the saying “All
roads lead to Rome,” and in Italy it is still called
Regina Viarum—the Queen of Roads. But
its legacy has been largely neglected, buried
with its stones under millennia of history.
Now an Italian government project is under
way to transform the Appian Way (Via Appia)
into a pilgrimage route from buzzing Rome
to nautical Brindisi, a quiet city on the heel of
Italy’s boot. In its roughly 360-mile span across
the country, the Appia takes many forms: a for-
ested dirt path, a town plaza, a highway. It’s not
always scenic or pleasant, but it is an immersion
into a slice of Italy few tourists see.
Before the crowds come, though, the Italian
government first must dig out the Appia and in
some cases, find it. That’s why, on a fall morn-
ing, I found myself looking down at the road
from an outpost of a hamburger empire. In
In Roman times, the
Appian Way shuttled
goods, soldiers, live-
stock, and ideas across
southern Italy. Herders
still take their flocks to
graze along the road in
what is now the Appia
Rome, the Appia is an 11-mile-long stretch of Antica Archaeological
well-preserved archaeological park. The last leg Park, in Rome.
of this park is a woodsy uphill path. Then the
PREVIOUS PHOTO
Appia vanishes under asphalt for 50 miles. Its
Rome’s third-century
last appearance in the Eternal City is beneath Arch of Drusus marks
the McDonald’s. the start of a planned
There lies a small offshoot of the Appia, one of 360-mile walking
route along the Appian
the rare segments that have recently been exca- Way that will immerse
vated and preserved. When I ask a restaurant travelers in less visited
manager about the ancient cobblestones, he calls parts of Italy. The road’s
original starting point
to a woman in sneakers sitting at a corner table. is still unknown.
She introduces herself as Pamela Cerino, the
archaeologist who dug out the road in 2014. In
what I consider an earth-shattering coincidence,

118 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Cerino just happens to be visiting the workers
she befriended during the two-year job.
We exit the restaurant and descend a staircase
to the ancient cobblestones. “The project was
made on purpose so if you want to look at the
road you don’t have to come into McDonald’s,”
Cerino tells me. Three skeletons lie in the gutter—
replicas of the bones she originally unearthed
there. Above us, through the glass ceiling, we can
see families feasting on McNuggets.
When a piece of the Appia was initially dis-
covered during construction, locals feared the
fast-food franchise was buying up old Roman
treasures. Actually, Cerino says, archaeological
sites often are reburied for preservation because
their upkeep is so expensive. As I come to learn,
glimpses of the Appia are few and far between,
and it’s lucky this one ended up seen at all.
I. THE ROUTE
THE VIA APPIA intersects cities, villages, moun-
tains, and farmland as it crosses four regions
and a hundred municipalities in Italy. Most of
it has been paved into obscurity under Strada
Statale 7, a busy road. But its original stones
sometimes appear—alongside a cocktail bar in
a village square, under heavy tarps in an over-
grown field.
The Appia, as envisioned by Roman admin-
istrator Appius Claudius, was a tool for military
domination. Enslaved people and laborers dug
out an estimated 1.6 million cubic feet of dirt
and stone for each freshly paved mile (the mile
measurement itself was a Roman invention).
Claudius named it after himself—a rare practice
R E V I V I N G T H E ROA D TO ROM E 119
Ruins of ancient Rome’s
essential aqueduct
network are preserved
in the Appia Antica
park. While tourists
flood more famous
sites in the capital city,
not many find their
way a few miles south,
leaving locals to enjoy
this green space.
in those days that suggests its importance—but
went blind and ultimately died before it was
completed. The Appia barreled through the
country in a nearly straight line, carrying the
Roman Army as the empire consumed south-
ern Italy and embarked east, via the sea, to
spread its dominion abroad. It was the first of
29 bustling roads that shot out from Rome.
Accounts of travel along the Appia began with
Latin poet Horace around 35 B.C., and it has had
no shortage of articulate admirers since. But
appreciation for the road as a feat of engineering
faded after the Roman Empire began to collapse
in A.D. 395, and the Appia gradually fell out of
use. In an 1846 book, Charles Dickens described
“tombs and temples, overthrown and prostrate.”
Then, in 2015, Italian writer Paolo Rumiz
decided to walk the Appia for La Repubblica
newspaper. The only problem: There was no
modern map of the route. He contacted Ric-
cardo Carnovalini, a prominent hiker who has
spent nearly four decades traversing Italy. For
two months, Carnovalini overlaid military maps,
ancient shepherd paths, and satellite imagery to
plot the Appia’s course. Then he loaded it into a
GPS and walked alongside Rumiz.
Rumiz’s journey drew the attention of the Min-
istry of Cultural Heritage, and in 2015 the Italian
government announced a plan to resurrect the
route. Centuries of lawless development had left
archaeological treasures in private hands, and
ancient villas recklessly remodeled. Preservation
has begun, but without visitors, the Appia could
be forgotten again.
“Walking,” Carnovalini tells me when I later
meet him on the Appia’s trail, “is the most polit-
ical act one can do to change the landscape.”
But many obstacles are keeping walkers away,
namely a difficult-to-find route, few accommo-
dations, and little supportive infrastructure.
Enter Angelo Costa, founder of Studio Costa,
one of the three architectural firms tasked with
turning the Appia into a walkable journey. His
proposal has a historical precedent: Ancient
Romans following the Appia encountered a
station to swap out their horses every 10 miles,
and a guesthouse every 20 miles. Costa envisions
an updated version, with 29 walking segments,
each about six hours.
Travelers will explore the theaters of famed
gladiator battles, sleep in simple guesthouses, and
taste regional delicacies. Rest areas, lodging—
some existing, some new—and attractions will
122 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
be marked on an app. The less-is-more approach
aims not to cover up the unpolished segments but
to offer an honest experience.
“In the U.S., you have Route 66,” Costa says.
“It’s not really about driving. It’s about the real
America. We have Route 66—plus 2,000 years.”
But it’s not America the Appia is competing
with. Costa isn’t the first of the Appia’s new
designers to reveal that a quiet rivalry is brewing:
The Camino de Santiago, Spain’s saintly route,
typically attracts 300,000 walkers, and its des-
tination, Santiago de Compostela, draws more
than two million tourists annually.
From Rome to Brindisi, the Appia is a secular
journey through Italian history. But done the
other direction, it trails St. Paul as he traveled
to Rome from Jerusalem. Compared with the
Camino de Santiago, Costa says, “the nature is
even better, the history is 200 times better. And
at the end, you reach the pope.”
II. THE START
I’d hoped to start at
TO F O L LOW T H E A P P I A ,
its beginning. I soon discover it hasn’t been
unearthed yet.
The first cobblestones are likely buried near
what is now a traffic-clogged roundabout at the
center of Rome. Today, in an effort to locate
them without halting the busy city, the Ministry
of Cultural Heritage has been digging out small,
deep strips of pavement—so far, unsuccessfully.
A few miles south is the Appia Antica Archaeo-
logical Park, the best preserved and most walkable
piece of the road. Its path meanders from cen-
tral Rome to the city’s outskirts, sprinkled on
either side with some 400 archaeological sites:
mosaic-filled Roman villas, a mazelike Chris-
tian catacomb with half a million dead, and
mausoleums of enslaved persons and ancient
society girls alike. “Stop, stranger,” one grave-
stone implores, “and look at this little mound
of earth on the left, where the bones of a good
person are enclosed.”
Modern life scrolls past: elderly couples on
sunset strolls and birthday partygoers on horse-
back tours. Shepherds in small cars herd goats
and sheep. Diners fork into platters of roasted
meats outside Qui Nun Se More Mai—“Here you
never die”—a cozy trattoria atop the Appia. The
stones dip where two millennia of horse-drawn
carts carved deep grooves.
 But the typical tourist to Rome is on a sightsee-
ing blitz, staying only a few days before leaving
for Florence or Venice. Before COVID-19, the
archaeological park saw 100,000 visitors a year.
Two miles north, the Colosseum drew over seven
million. A new park director has installed an
alluring schedule of concerts, festivals, and her-
itage days. It appeared to be working on a warm
fall day: Parents picnicked in fields around a
crumbled Roman stadium while children charged
each other with fake gladiator swords.
There’s a peacefulness to this park that makes
it unlike any of Rome’s other ancient attractions.
As the Appia’s stones stretch away from the city,
the archaeological sites thin until only a lone
column or statue stands among lush fields.
Stone pines with flat, leafy tops offer shade,
and there are occasional historical markers
and water fountains. But once the path hits the
McDonald’s, the Appia disappears.

III. WALK THROUGH TIME

beyond Rome,
TO D E C I P H E R T H E A P P I A’ S R O U T E
I enlist the help of Riccardo Carnovalini, the
trekker who mapped it in 2015. We meet in
the small city of Benevento, at a restaurant in the
plaza. Carnovalini, who is 64, wears zip-off
hiking pants, a fleece, and new boots that
already have clocked nearly 450 miles. We fill
a table with deep-fried zucchini flowers and cod
stewed in tomato sauce. Over a minty aperitif,
he quotes Italian author Italo Calvino, who once
wrote that a visited country “must pass between
the lips and down the esophagus.”
When Carnovalini and author Paolo Rumiz
first walked the Appia in 2015, their course
ended up about 50 miles longer than the orig-
inal route. Modernity had consumed much of
the early path, forcing them to navigate around
highways and industrial zones.
We are already 140 miles from Rome, but Car-
novalini describes this area as the start of the
many disagreements over the Appia’s original
path. To make the modern route, Carnovalini
has studied maps, street angles, and building
materials and chosen the most feasible option.
Even so, pink and blue lines plotted on his GPS
show the competing theories.
“There are other walks,” he says, as the waiters
begin closing the restaurant for the night, “but
they’re for tourism. This is not a walk; it’s history.”
The next day we pass by overburdened trac-
tors chugging through tobacco fields, hills of
spinning windmills, and fields being devoured
by controlled fires. Carnovalini strolls effort-
lessly, cracking hazelnuts and picking wine
grapes from curling vines along the path.
The Appia has literally been absorbed by these
sleepy villages, its stones and columns embed-
ded in walls and doorways. On long stretches,
the red line on Carnovalini’s GPS is the only
indication we’re still on the right track.
Short yellow paths indicate detours to keep
walkers off major roads. As an adviser to the
Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Carnovalini has
mapped out dozens of these, both to circumvent
the route’s impassable segments and to lead
walkers to existing accommodations. Walking
the Appia, I learn, doesn’t always mean walking on
the Appia. Carnovalini takes me on one detour

124 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
 LEFT
The Appia’s meaning
for couples is “the
path they have to walk
together,” says wed-
ding photographer
Angelo Corbi, who
has a studio along the
route’s stones in the
village of Terracina.
“What better than the
Via Appia for that?”
The town plaza has
become a popular des-
tination for weddings,
and Corbi ensures
the Appia provides
a historic backdrop.

BELOW
Niccolò Bassotti
practices with his
soccer team on
Gerini Quadraro,
a field—famously fea-
tured in the opening
scene of filmmaker
Federico Fellini’s La
Dolce Vita—just a few
yards from the ancient
aqueducts in Rome.

R E V I V I N G T H E ROA D TO ROM E 125

James Bond fans may
recognize the Ponte
dell’Acquedotto, near
the Appia’s path in
Gravina in Puglia,
from 007’s leap in No
Time to Die. Attract-
ing film productions
is one way southern
Italy hopes to raise its
economic prospects.
AB OVE

At Italy’s Central
Institute for Res-
toration, specialist
Adriano Casagrande
repairs a bust known
as the Philosopher’s
Head. It was found
during excavations
of Rome’s grand Villa
dei Quintili, at the fifth
mile of the Via Appia.

RIGHT
Ilaria Cavaterra, a
conservation student,
restores mosaic floors
at the Villa dei Quintili.
The residence was so
coveted that Emperor
Commodus is said to
have killed its owners
and moved in himself
in the second century.
“This palace, if it’s well
preserved, can give to
the tourists and all the
people the full experi-
ence of life in ancient
Rome,” says Serena di
Gaetano, a mosaic con-
servation expert who
oversees the project.

128
through the charming hilltop village of Frigento,
where we descend into a Roman cistern and greet
the town’s free-roaming resident peacocks.
IV. HONEST TOURISM
has ear-
T H E M I N I S T RY O F C U LT U R A L H E R I TAG E
marked 20 million euros ($22 million) to develop
the Appia for tourism, but as I visit archaeolog-
ical sites along the route, it’s clear more funds
are being eagerly awaited. Archaeologists spent
2020 excavating a 50-yard stretch of Appian cob-
blestones in a town called Passo di Mirabella.
Today it’s hidden under a large protective sheet.
Another phase of funding is necessary for the
team to continue preserving their finds.
It’s the same story across Italy, where an eco-
nomic dip has forced the national government
to cut the cultural heritage budget every year
for the past decade—leading to the reburying
of discovered sites. The cash injection along
the Appia’s path is welcome, but it’s going to
require sustained upkeep. These regions tend
to be overlooked, archaeologists tell me. When
there’s money, one says, it usually ends up in
Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Carnovalini had cautioned that a journey
along the Appia is unique for its honesty. “The
Appian experience is up and down,” he said. “In
one moment you’re saying, ‘Wow, that’s beau-
tiful,’ then you turn your head and say, ‘Wow,
that’s horrible.’
“Italy,” he added, “is not a postcard.”
That truth crystallizes as I approach Taranto,
a port city roughly 40 miles from the Appia’s
end. This is the only place where Carnovalini
and Rumiz were forced to hail a taxi during their
trek. Before me is a six-square-mile expanse of
industrial production. This pollution-belching
steel plant, the largest in Europe, has turned
Taranto into “the trenches of Italy,” an Italian
journalist warned me before I arrived.
The Appia runs alongside the factory and
into an island that holds Taranto’s old town. It
feels time has rewound 60 years. In tiny store-
fronts, old men paint religious figurines to sell
to the few tourists. Fishing boats jostle for space
along the boardwalk; I am told that dolphins and
whales are sometimes visible on the horizon.
Winding alleys lead to a cathedral dripping with
marble. Taranto instantly becomes my favorite
spot along the Appia. But above this mirage of
old Italy, black plumes billow from smokestacks.
Taranto was the only city founded by the Spar-
tans outside Greece, and a row of Greek columns
still stands near the water. This is where I meet
Massimo Castellana, a member of an activist
coalition fighting to close the factory. On windy
days, when steel particles blow into town, res-
idents shut their windows and keep their kids
home from school. Studies have shown high
levels of cancer here compared with the rest
of Italy, particularly among children. Taranto
should be known for its beauty, Castellana says,
not its industry. But despite years of protests, the
factory remains open.
Among the many hopes embedded in the
revival of the Appia by people like Castellana is
that harnessing history for tourism can reverse
the fortunes of southern Italy, which has long
been stereotyped as old-fashioned and crime
R E V I V I N G T H E ROA D TO ROM E 129
To make an Appian
journey appealing to
tourists, planners have
designed nearly a hun-
dred small detours
to scenic lookouts,
charming villages, and
archaeological sites
along the route. The
Castle of Monteserico,
which sits just off the
Appia, is one of those.
ridden. As I head from Taranto to Brindisi, the
Appia’s end, I stop in the once walled city of
Mesagne where I meet Simonetta Dellomonaco,
head of the regional film commission, who tells
me her guiding adage: “Culture is the only fuel
that doesn’t pollute the more you consume.”
When Dellomonaco was growing up, Mesagne
was known as the birthplace of Italy’s fourth
Mafia family, the Sacra Corona Unita. Today
that image is being replaced by scenic Holly-
wood cameos, including in the latest James
Bond film.
As we speak, actors playing Native Americans
are riding through a nearby park that’s posing
as the American West. And just outside town,
archaeologists have unearthed the last visible
stretch of the Appia’s original cobblestones.
Investing in its heritage landed Mesagne as a
finalist for Italy’s 2024 Capital of Culture. “They
used to say every road leads to Rome,” Dellomo-
naco says. “But here the most important ends.”

V. END OF THE ROAD

Brindisi reached its big-
“ U N D E R T H E RO M A N S ,
gest splendor,” a local guide is telling a small
crowd gathered on the boardwalk in Brindisi.
“They understood the importance of the port.
From Brindisi you could take off for the East.”
It’s Via Appia Day, an annual celebration, and
the group is touring the route’s end point on a
sunny October afternoon. Around 266 B.C., the
Romans arrived here, defeated the Messapian
civilization, and completed the Appian Way.
The guide is climbing a tall set of stairs, toward
the columns that famously mark the end of the
route. The group gathers for a photo around a
towering column and the base of its twin (the
rest was gifted to a neighboring city centuries
ago). “These columns are commonly considered
the end of the Appian Way,” she is saying. “But
not everyone agrees.”
Hold on. The Appia’s starting point was
uncertain, but the finale was always clear: two
columns framing the Adriatic Sea in Brindisi.
But analysis of the marble has revealed they
were built two centuries later.
An archaeologist on the Appia’s excavation
warns me not to get too consumed with finding
its end. The Appia is chameleon-like, changing
from street to route to highway—more a system
than a line. “We’re chasing a myth,” he says.
What’s important is that the Appia turned
Brindisi into a global powerhouse, from which the
Roman Army set off to expand its empire east to
cities like Alexandria and Jerusalem. Eventually,
the Roman Empire ruled a quarter of the human
population across three continents.
Brindisi became a destination for Holy Land
pilgrims, who waited for weeks to board the
next boat to Jerusalem. Now, a couple hundred
travelers show up each year via various hiking
routes that lead to the city. Restoring Brindisi’s
reputation as a destination is the personal cru-
sade of Rosy Barretta. Barretta privately funds
an organization that arranges visits for pilgrims,
called Brindisi and the Ancient Roads, and her
family runs a large tugboat company. “It was a
waste that no one was taking care of this piece
of engineering and inventiveness,” she says. She

132 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

imagines Brindisi once again filled with travelers
tracing the Appia’s path.
The morning after the tour, she invites me
to join her on a tugboat to see the port. Skinny
roads stretch out from the city into the sea,
creating a sheltering circle around Brindisi
and giving it the appearance of having ant-
lers. The Alfonsino Castle sits on one of these
“horns,” surrounded by the Adriatic, its stone
walls glimmering in the sun. Barretta dreams of
transforming it into a national Appia museum.
She envisions its restored lighthouse beaming
a spotlight 60 miles over the water, drawing in
cruise ships and destination weddings.
We watch as a hulking ship approaches the
port of Brindisi. Our tugboat’s captain, a young
Brindisi native named Alessandro di Giulio,
opens an app on his phone and tracks the boat
The Appia would have
run to—and perhaps
through—the gate to
Brindisi before likely
becoming the main
street, known in Roman
times as the decumanus.
Two ornately carved
columns were erected
above the port of
Brindisi and thought
to mark the end of the
Appian Way. Today only
one remains; its mate
was given to a neighbor-
ing city centuries ago.
back to its departure point in Mozambique.
It carries raw sugar, he says, which will be
unloaded and processed locally.
The water is calm as two of Barretta’s tugboats
rush to greet the ship and begin to pull it into
port. Di Giulio tells me he recently moved back
home after a decade abroad working for Carni-
val Cruises. He saw the Middle East, Africa, and
the Caribbean but always dreamed of returning
to the port of Brindisi, where ships have been
unloading goods and passengers for thousands
of years. “From my professional point of view,”
he says, “it’s the center of the world.” j
Staff writer Nina Strochlic last wrote about Maya
beekeepers in Mexico. Italian photographer
Andrea Frazzetta explored a sulfur mine inside
a volcano for the August 2018 issue. His family
roots are at the end of the Via Appia—in Brindisi.
R E V I V I N G T H E ROA D TO ROM E 133
 INSTAGRAM
BEVERLY JOUBERT
FROM OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS

WHO When Joubert and her husband, Dereck—National

A conservation filmmaker Geographic Explorers at Large—were filming their TV
and photographer special- series Okavango: River of Dreams, they got a good look
izing in African wildlife
at hippo behavior. And an earful. Hippos communicate
WHERE
with lots of sounds: grunts, squeals, deafening honks.
The Okavango Delta, in
northwestern Botswana Unfamiliar voices may spark aggression; familiar
WHAT ones tend to elicit calmer reactions. Challenged for
Canon EOS-1D X with a his territory by a more dominant male, the hippo
28-300mm lens above honked and thrashed, but it was futile. He was
pushed out of his pod and had to move on.
National Geographic is the most popular brand on Instagram, with more than 292 million followers.
This page showcases images from our accounts: @natgeo, @natgeotravel, @natgeointhefield,
@natgeoadventure, @natgeoyourshot.

Subscriptions For subscriptions or changes of ad-
dress, contact Customer Service at ngmservice.com
or call 1-800-647-5463. Outside the U.S. or Canada
call +1-515-237-3674.
Contributions to the National Geographic Society are tax deductible under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code.
| Copyright © 2022 National Geographic Partners, LLC | All rights reserved. National Geographic and Yellow
®
Border: Registered Trademarks Marcas Registradas. National Geographic assumes no responsibility for
unsolicited materials. Printed in U.S.A. | For corrections and clarifications, go to natgeo.com/corrections.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (ISSN 0027-9358) PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS, LLC, 1145 17TH ST. NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20036. $39 PER YEAR FOR U.S. DELIVERY, $50.00
TO CANADA, $69.00 TO INTERNATIONAL ADDRESSES. SINGLE ISSUE: $8.00 U.S. DELIVERY, $10.00 CANADA, $15.00 INTERNATIONAL. (ALL PRICES IN U.S. FUNDS; INCLUDES SHIPPING AND HANDLING.)
PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT WASHINGTON, DC, AND ADDITIONAL MAILING OFFICES. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, PO BOX 37545, BOONE, IA 50037. IN
CANADA, AGREEMENT NUMBER 1000010298, RETURN UNDELIVERABLE ADDRESSES TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, PO BOX 819 STN MAIN, MARKHAM, ONTARIO L3P 9Z9. UNITED KINGDOM NEWSSTAND
PRICE £6.99. REPR. EN FRANCE: EMD FRANCE SA, BP 1029, 59011 LILLE CEDEX; TEL. 320.300.302; CPPAP 0725U89037; DIRECTEUR PUBLICATION: D. TASSINARI. DIR. RESP. ITALY: RAPP IMD SRL, VIA G. DA
VELATE 11, 20162 MILANO; AUT. TRIB. MI 258 26/5/84 POSTE ITALIANE SPA; SPED. ABB. POST. DL 353/2003 (CONV L.27/02/2004 N.46) ART 1 C. 1 DCB MILANO STAMPA. QUAD, MARTINSBURG, WV 25401.
SUBSCRIBERS: IF THE POSTAL SERVICE ALERTS US THAT YOUR MAGAZINE IS UNDELIVERABLE, WE HAVE NO FURTHER OBLIGATION UNLESS WE RECEIVE A CORRECTED ADDRESS WITHIN TWO YEARS.

134 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
omegawatches.com

C H A N G I N G T H E WAY T H E W O R L D S E E S

As proud partners of Orbis International, we take every opportunity to promote its life-
changing work. Aboard its Flying Eye Hospital, Orbis fights avoidable blindness by
bringing vital eye care and training to places with the greatest need. Together, we’ve
made a huge difference, but extra help is always appreciated. We’d love to have you on
board. How do teddy bears and OMEGA support the organization? It’s time to find out!

www.omegawatches.com/orbis
 I T R AV E L W I T H U S T H I S S U M M E R

AVA I L A B L E W H E R E V E R B O O K S A R E S O L D
NatGeoBooks @NatGeoBooks © 2022 National Geographic Partners, LLC