Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2023
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INSIDE THE
DOME
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OF
THE
ROCK
A N E X C L U S I V E L O O K AT
O N E O F T H E WO R L D ’ S MO ST
SAC R E D S I T E S
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N O C E L L S E RV I C E
IN THE WILD
But there is lots of roaming. Elephants need lots of space to live. That’s why when you join us on
our conservation trip in Kenya, you’re helping support the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s elephant
habitat protection program. In fact, no matter where you travel with us, a portion of that fare
always goes back to supporting important causes around the world from research,
to conservation, and more.
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
FURTHER SEPTEMBER 2023
C O N T E N T S On the Cover
Visitors pause in the
Jerusalem compound
surrounding the Dome of
the Rock, in a February
2022 photograph.
ZIYAH GAFIĆ
P R O O F E X P L O R E
When Pasta
Is Prologue
Scientists’ hunt for a
low-cost way to cook
pasta yielded theories,
data, recipes, and puns.
BY DAV I D FA I R H U R ST
Chasing Elusive
Animal Images
32
ARTIFACT
Angelo Bernardino
A Call to Remember He studies mangrove
“Peace is our number ecosystems, as part of
one priority,” wrote an Amazon expedition
Sachiko Matsuo (above), supported by National
one of the survivors of Geographic and Rolex.
atom bombs the U.S. BY N ATA S H A DA LY
dropped on Hiroshima
ALSO
and Nagasaki in 1945.
P H OTO G R A P H S BY Counting Stellar Rings
H A RU K A S A K AG U C H I Tennis Ball Recycling
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S E P T E M B E R | FROM THE EDITOR
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N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C E X P L O R E R S
These contributors have received funding from
the National Geographic Society, which is committed to illuminating
and protecting the wonder of our world.
Thomas Peschak
Educated as a marine biologist, Peschak picked up a camera in an effort to increase his influence on wildlife
conservation. His images of oceans, coasts, and islands have filled eight books and garnered 17 Wildlife Photographer
of the Year awards. An Explorer since 2017, he’s participating in the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet
Amazon Expedition, for which he photographed the magazine’s July 2023 article on Amazonian rock art. While
shooting this month’s feature in Mozambique, he documented the relationship between people and wildlife, from a
honey hunter raiding a beehive up a baobab tree to pilgrims revering baboons at a sacred ceremonial site. Page 108
PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): DANIEL ZIEGERT; TAMARA MERINO; ZACH STEINHAUSER; COREY ARNOLD; RODRIGO CHODIL
Purina trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
FOR ONE AMAZING LIFE
PROVEN NATURAL NUTRITION
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A Difference
From Day ONE
TM
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P R O O F
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C LO O K I N G AT T H E E A RT H F RO M E V E RY P O S S I B L E A N G L E
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Minoru Moriuchi (8 0* )
N AGA S A K I • 3 M I L E S F RO M
H Y P O C E N T E R AT T I M E O F B O M B I N G
“On the morning of August 9, 1945, I
was perched atop a giant persimmon tree
in our backyard, catching cicadas,” says
Moriuchi. Then “the sun exploded.”
OPPOSITE
Kumiko Arakawa (92)
N AGA S A K I • 1.8 MILES
Arakawa, who died in 2019, lost both par-
ents and four siblings in the bombing. “At
age 20, I was suddenly required to support
my surviving family members,” she said.
8 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
A CALL TO REMEMBER
This photographer’s project honors those whose lives were forever changed by the atomic bomb.
VO L . 2 4 4 N O. 3
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SEPTEMBER 2023 9
P R O O F
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Sachiko Matsuo (8 3)
N AGA S A K I • 0. 8 M I L E
10 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
When the U.S. dropped atomic
bombs over Japan in August
1945, people were blown apart,
burned, and crushed.
Debris and ash descended as radioactive fallout, called black rain. The
extreme heat of the explosions ignited massive fires that caused people to
flee to rivers, where many drowned. By the end of the year, the death toll
from Hiroshima and Nagasaki totaled more than 200,000. But it didn’t stop
there. Many who initially survived would later succumb to radiation-induced
illnesses; sometimes their children, too, suffered from related ailments.
Hibakusha is the Japanese term for “atomic bomb survivors”—but given
the lasting damages of radiation exposure, it’s perhaps more accurately
translated as “atomic bomb sufferers.”
At the time of the Hiroshima bombing, my mother was six years old and
at home, a mile away from the hypocenter (the ground directly below the
explosion)—or so I thought. She never told me about her experience, and I
never asked about it, as the thought of facing her vulnerability scared me.
I witnessed my mother’s suffering throughout her life—from Ménière’s
disease in her 30s, “blood booster” shots in her 40s, and multiple cancers
in her 50s. She died at age 62. My aunt later told me that my mother might
have been even closer to the hypocenter, at an elementary school where
hundreds of children perished.
My grandfather died from acute radiation sickness. My grandmother
“Peace is our number one died from lung cancer. My cousin, whose mother was in Hiroshima that
priority,” says Matsuo in day, developed an autoimmune disease that took her life when she was in
Japanese, above. As part
her 50s. I was grateful to reach 50. I never thought I would survive that long.
of her project, photog-
rapher Sakaguchi asked Knowing the horrors of atomic bombs, many hibakusha advocate for
bomb survivors, or peace. Their vision became partially realized on January 22, 2021, when
hibakusha, to write down the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was put
a message for future gen-
erations. For translations into effect, but neither the U.S. nor Japan has ratified it.
of all the messages I tell the stories of hibakusha in the university courses I teach and on edu-
shown here, complete cational tours to Japan that I lead. Photographer Haruka Sakaguchi traveled
testimonies, and details
about the experiences there in 2017 to seek out hibakusha willing to share their experiences, which
of other hibakusha, visit she preserves in her documentary project 1945. A National Geographic
1945project.com. Explorer, Sakaguchi pays tribute to this ever shrinking community through
portraits, testimonies, and messages to future generations. I’m grateful for
her work, which serves our shared goal: to ensure that this atrocity and the
ongoing plight of these people aren’t forgotten. —Y U K I M I YA M OTO
SEPTEMBER 2023 11
P R O O F
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12 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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Keiko Okinishi (5 2 )
H I R O S H I M A | 2 N D G E N E R AT I O N
Okinishi is a second-generation hibakusha; her
mother survived the Nagasaki bomb, and Okini-
shi has a thyroid disease, which a doctor said was
likely caused by her mother’s radiation exposure.
“I have felt compelled to learn more about the
atomic bomb and my mother’s history,” Okinishi
wrote (above, in part). And she is now a densho-
sha, or legacy successor, sharing her experiences
as a hibakusha with others.
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Akito Kawamoto (9 0 )
H I R O S H I M A • NYUSHI HIBAKUSHA
When the bomb exploded, Kawamoto escaped
direct exposure, because he was riding a train
on his way home to Hiroshima from the island of
Kyushu. He spent days searching for his wife in
the wreckage of the city. She survived the attack
but was later diagnosed with genbakushoo, or
radiation-induced illness. As Kawamoto witnessed
his wife’s suffering, “her pain quickly became my
pain,” he says in his online testimony.
SEPTEMBER 2023 13
P R O O F
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Just 14 when the bomb hit, Torikoshi was in front of his house looking for the planes whose engines he had heard. All he
saw was a black dot. Then it burst into “a ball of blinding light that filled my surroundings,” he said in his testimony. He felt
intense heat on his face, was swept off his feet, and passed out. When he regained consciousness, he tried to stop the
14 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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burning sensation by submerging himself in water, which only made it worse. His injuries were so severe he wasn’t expected
to survive past 20. Yet he lived many more decades, passing away in 2018. “Life is a curious treasure,” he wrote (above). “We
cannot continue to sacrifice precious lives to warfare,” he said. “All I can do is pray—earnestly, relentlessly—for world peace.”
SEPTEMBER 2023 15
Scan to Donate
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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 4 N O. 3
Science, Boiled
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Down to Pasta
PUT TING PHYSICS TO WORK IN REAL LIFE CAN MAKE THE SCIENCE LESS
I N T I M I D AT I N G , M O R E D I G E S T I B L E — P E R H A P S E V E N I N S P I R I N G .
B Y DAV I D FA I R H U R S T
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SEPTEMBER 2023 17
E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA
18 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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PHOTO: ULLSTEIN BILD DTL/GETTY IMAGES; ILLUSTRATION: JAVIER JAÉN SEPTEMBER 2023 19
E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA
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EX PLOR E
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E X P L O R E | BREAKTHROUGHS
MEDICINE
Cutting off
oxygen to
kill tumors
微信公众号:全球首发刊王 Bioengineers in
China have created
a tiny implantable
battery that makes
tumors easier to
destroy by denying
them oxygen and
charges itself on
salt water injected
in nearby tissue. It
hasn’t been tested
yet on humans, but
when inserted into
OCEAN BIOLOGY
the armpits of mice
and used with an
PHOTOS (FROM TOP): NASA, ESA, CSA (IMAGE PROCESSING BY ANDRÁS GÁSPÁR, U. OF ARIZONA, AND ALYSSA PAGAN, STSCI); GUY STEVENS, MANTA TRUST;
NIV FROMAN, MANTA TRUST, CAMBRIDGE U.; STEVE SEUNG-YOUNG LEE, NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE/U. OF CHICAGO COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER
TA K E A
S M A RT S T E P
TOWA R D A
MORE SECURE
FUTURE
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F E D S O N VA N D E I R A
S I M P L E + S A F E . S E C U R E YO U R F U T U R E W I T H L I F E T I M E PAYM E N T S .
E X P L O R E | PLANET POSSIBLE
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E X P L O R E | T R AV E L R A DA R
BY RONAN O’CONNELL
微信公众号:全球首发刊王 B U I LT B Y T H E
COLONIZING SPANISH
IN THE LATE
1 5 0 0 S , M A N I L A’ S
1
WA L L E D D I S T R I C T RWANDAN C O N S E RVAT I O N S U C C E S S
REVIVAL
OF INTRAMUROS IS A decade ago there were no
GETTING A LONG- lions or rhinos in Rwanda’s
Akagera National Park,
AWA I T E D R E N O VAT I O N
largely because of rampant
THAT WILL INCLUDE
poaching following the 1994
DISTINCTIVE DESIGN
SIX MILES OF SCENIC genocide against the Tutsi.
Cool Welcome BIKE LANES. But a collaboration by the
in a Volcanic Land
Resembling the sharp Rwandan government and
hull of an icebreaker, nonprofit African Parks has
the striking building revitalized 277,000 acres
above is a new visitors of wetlands and savanna
center in Iceland’s along Rwanda’s border with
42,000-acre Snæfells-
Tanzania. Now Akagera is a
jökull National Park.
Walking and cycling growing tourist attraction
trails wind through the with some 60 lions, several
park, which hosts some dozen rhinos, more than
of this island nation’s
renowned lava fields,
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130 elephants, and about
80 giraffes. “The revival of
sea cliffs, and black-
Akagera is nothing short
sand beaches.
of astounding,” says park
manager Ladis Ndahiriwe.
Akagera “has become a crit-
ical contributor to the local
and national economy.”
HISTORIC STAGES
The elegant—and
some say haunted—
Tabor Opera House, built
in 1879 in mining boom-
town Leadville, Colorado,
is undergoing a $15 million
rehabilitation. A trove of
vintage theatrical scenery
recently was discovered
at this community gath-
ering place, a stop on the
new Colorado Historic
Opera Houses Circuit.
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Photographer Corey Arnold scouts a camera-trap spot near a fence hole used as a pass-through by wildlife in Chicago.
BY COREY ARNOLD
WHEN I LANDED A feature assignment for National While I did manage to capture the tense moment
Geographic about urban wildlife in the United States, right before the charge, almost every subsequent
I was elated. There was just one problem: I had to attempt to record raccoon behavior and add to the
figure out how to photograph wild animals on the series was a blurry failure. But I was determined to
move at night. one day figure out how to surmount the obstacles.
I had dreamed of delving into a long-term pho- Twenty years later, I had the perfect excuse to
tography project about these citified critters ever do exactly that. I would be spending months in
since my college days in San Francisco, when I was the field documenting urban wildlife. My task for
“mugged” by a raccoon. I used to roam the streets this assignment was to capture the hidden lives
after dark, shooting the evocative, dimly lit land- of raccoons, black bears, and coyotes—experts at
scapes, and one night I suddenly saw a raccoon hiding and scavenging—in several U.S. cities. The
stand up like a human before running toward me images could help answer questions about adap-
and persuading me to relinquish my bag of Cheetos. tation: Do city animals become bolder and more
E X P L O R E | THROUGH THE LENS
28 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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my camera trap to capture his departure. There was In South Lake Tahoe,
a decent chance he would clamber through a hole California, a large black
bear emerges from the
in the surrounding wooden fence, one of two possi- property where he sleeps
ble exit routes. I worked all afternoon and late into under an abandoned house.
the night configuring my lighting to complement the
glow from nearby streetlamps. My camera was on a
tripod with no way to lock it down to prevent theft, the first frame was the one you see above. Not a
so I couldn’t leave it there for weeks as I had at other blurry butt, but a sharp and magnificent face staring
locations. I needed to get the shot in one night, and right back at me.
everything had to operate perfectly. I left the scene, During the many months I worked on this project,
lest the bear get wind of me, and hoped for the best. I came to see that these four-legged city slickers
When I returned early the next morning and ner- are indeed learning ways to adapt to living among
vously pressed the camera’s image-review button, people. And I learned a thing or two from them. j
SEPTEMBER 2023 29
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EXPLORING THE OTHERWORLDLY BEAUTY OF
’S UPPER PENINSULA
By Stacey Cook
PA I D C O N T E N T F O R
AS A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHER, MICHAEL GEORGE HAS TRAVELED ALL OVER THE WORLD
IN SEARCH OF NEW PLACES AND PERSPECTIVES. FOR HIS NEXT ADVENTURE, HE HAD A UNIQUE PLACE
IN MIND: MICHIGAN’S UPPER PENINSULA, A REMOTE PLACE OF SPECTACULAR NATURAL BEAUTY.
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›› From Copper Harbor, Michael hopped on Gray wolves arrived by crossing an ice bridge
a seaplane to venture deeper into the wild. that formed between the island and mainland
Isle Royale National Park is a remote and Canada in the winter of 1948. During this part of
rugged archipelago that can be accessed only the journey, Michael got to meet Rolf Peterson,
by ferry or seaplane. The best way to explore >ÀiÃi>ÀViÀÜ>ÃëiÌwÛi`iV>`iÃÃÌÕ`Þ}
this isolated stretch of wilderness is by gliding how the island’s wolf and moose populations
along the clear, cold water of Lake Superior affect each other.
in a kayak or canoe. But there’s plenty to see
by land, too—backpackers can trek 165 miles While researchers study the island, its landscape
of trails and stay in secluded campsites. keeps a record of human history in well-preserved
ëÜÀiV Ã] }ÌÕÃiÃ]>`wÃiÀið Ý« ÀiÀÃ
Isle Royale is designated as an International have always been drawn to the Lake Superior
Biosphere Reserve for its unique ecosystem. region. As Michael boarded the seaplane again
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There’s a boreal forest to the east and a ÌyÞÛiÀÃ >`ÃÃÌÀiÌV}ÌÌiÀâ]
temperate hardwood forest to the west. he couldn’t wait to come back.
“
I've seen many beautiful
landscapes on my travels in 微信公众号:全球⾸发刊王
the U.P., but I feel it's the people
that really bring it to life.
”
This is paid content. This content does not necessarily reflect the views of National Geographic or its editorial staff.
E X P L O R E
In a mangrove forest in
Brazil’s Bailique district,
Bernardino takes measure-
ments of a tree trunk.
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Protecting mangroves
is key to mitigating
climate change,
this ecologist says.
When Angelo Bernardino’s family had accessible only when the tide is out.
Sunday lunches at a favorite restaurant Bernardino and colleagues wait in their
in Vitória, his hometown on Brazil’s boat for low tide, then wade into the
Atlantic coast, “right next to us were tangle of roots and take soil samples,
mangroves,” the National Geographic measurements, and photos. After about
Explorer and marine ecologist recalls. four hours, they scramble to leave 微信公众号:全球⾸发刊王
The trees teemed with mosquitoes before a 12-foot-tall wave, the pororoca,
but were “beautiful and pristine.” He rushes in and floods their workspace.
was captivated. Mangroves are vital to the region’s
After decades studying ocean eco- climate change mitigation efforts, Ber-
systems, Bernardino now places special nardino says, as they absorb salt and
emphasis on mangroves. He’s part of carbon and need little oxygen. The Bra-
the National Geographic and Rolex zilian government’s current emissions
Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition, reduction goals don’t stress mangrove
a series of scientific research projects protection; Bernardino hopes the data
spanning the Amazon River Basin. he gathers will influence that policy.
Coastal trees and shrubs character- Some 2,500 acres of Amazon man-
ized by their gnarled, exposed roots, groves fall to deforestation each year;
mangroves thrive in places other plants cutting them releases up to four times
don’t: where rivers meet oceans in trop- as much carbon as cutting the same
ical and subtropical regions, typically amount of upland trees, Bernardino’s
in brackish, but sometimes in fresh, team recently found. “Now we know,”
water. Examining mangroves means he says, “what happens when man-
racing against time, as their roots are groves are disturbed.” — N ATA S H A DA LY
This article was supported by Rolex, which is partnering with the National Geographic
Society on science-based expeditions to explore, study, and document change in
the planet’s unique regions.
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HEIGHT OF FASHION
But the skyscraper of footwear was
arguably the chopine, worn by noble
Venetian women in the late 1500s. The
tallest known example of this platform
shoe (left), now in Florence’s Museo
I N R E N A I S S A N C E I T A LY, T H E Stefano Bardini, tops out at almost two
CHOPINE PUT NOBLE WOMEN feet. A shorter but still impressively
O N A P E D E S T A L — L I T E R A L LY. lofty one (center) is on display at the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from
September 9 through January 7.
Venetian chopines were not meant
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director of the Bata Shoe Museum
in Toronto (which also showcases a
chopine). They were hidden under
the wearers’ skirts. The higher the
shoe, the longer the skirt, allowing
for a greater display of the opulent
textiles that proclaimed family wealth
From left: A Venetian
and were a foundation of the economy
chopine that’s nearly in Venice.
two feet tall and a version Brides braving the shoes for the
that’s 11⅞ inches tall are
first time went to a ballet master to
made from wood covered
in leather. The blue velvet learn how to walk. But extremely high
chopine adorned with chopines required the support of an
gold lace rises a relatively attendant on either side of the wearer,
modest 5½ inches. All three
examples date to the late who advanced “like a parade float,”
16th or early 17th centuries. says Semmelhack.
For these elevated ladies with their
sidecars of servants, chopines tele-
graphed status—much as a pair of
Manolo Blahnik pumps does today.
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— C AT H Y N E W M A N
PHOTOS (FROM LEFT): FLORENTINE CIVIC MUSEUMS PHOTO LIBRARY; ELIZABETH DAY MCCORMICK COLLECTION, MUSEUM
32 OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON; LEA CHRISTIANO, BROOKLYN MUSEUM COSTUME COLLECTION, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C SEPTEMBER 2023
F EAT U R E S
AT A SACRED LOCATION IN
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34
Crowning Jerusalem’s
sacred mount, the
Dome of the Rock is a
place of both prayer
and protest. Extensive
restoration and archae-
ological research are
uncovering fresh clues
to the shrine’s origins.
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At the heart of the
Dome of the Rock is
a limestone outcrop
revered by Muslims as
the place from which
Muhammad ascended
on his mystical journey
into heaven. One of
the world’s largest
collections of Islamic
mosaics covers some
13,000 square feet of
the shrine’s interior.
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‘ANY VIEWER’S
TONGUE WILL
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GROW SHORTER
TRYING TO
DESCRIBE IT,’
marveled the inveterate traveler Ibn Battuta while visiting
Jerusalem in 1326. “This is one of the most fantastic of all
buildings, of the most perfect in architecture and strangest
in shape.”
For more than 13 centuries, the Dome of the Rock has
been the jewel in the crown of Jerusalem’s sacred acropolis,
a sprawling area known to Jews and Christians as the Temple
Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al Sharif—the Noble
Sanctuary. As Islam’s oldest building, the dome ranks with
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the neighboring Church of the Holy Sepulchre in spiritual
importance and the Taj Mahal in grace. Simple geometry
dressed in sumptuous materials gives this iconic structure
a timeless appeal.
One chilly winter morning, the shrine slowly fills with
women in long coats and hijabs. They sit on the plush red-
and-gold carpet, alone in contemplation or in small groups to
study the Quran. While men flock to the much larger Al Aqsa
Mosque a hundred yards to the south, this tranquil space is
mostly the domain of Muslim women and children.
Sireen Karim, a middle-age kindergarten teacher dressed
in black, gestures at the mass of stone that dominates the
center of the building.
“This is where Muhammad, peace be upon him, ascended
A mother and her to heaven to meet all the prophets, and where he came back
daughters pray in the
Well of Souls, a grotto with the message to pray five times a day,” she says. “It also
beneath the venerated healed his sadness. And this is where we come to cure our
stone. Here, according grief and ease a troubled state of mind.”
to some, the spirits
of the dead await the The sacred slab is the color of moon rock, its coarse
final judgment. and pitted surface contrasting sharply with the splendor
38 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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surrounding it. Two concentric rings of mar- that the space conceals a secret passage filled
ble and porphyry columns and piers encircle with valuable artifacts.
it, supporting a dome laced with fantastically In 1911 European treasure hunters bribed
intricate shapes. The walls carry flowing Arabic their way inside and hacked away at the cave
inscriptions, as well as one of the world’s largest floor in vain hope of finding the famed Ark of the
collections of medieval mosaics. From below, Covenant. Their desecration sparked weeks of
these tiny glass-cubed pixels resolve into lush angry rioting. Seventy years later, senior Israeli
palms, ripe grapes, and a fortune in diadems and rabbis bored a hole at the base of the Western
necklaces. An occasional pigeon flies through Wall and tunneled their way east to try to locate
one of the four open doors, whirring in circles the sacred object. The illicit search yielded
within the round expanse. nothing but a brief scuffle between rabbinical
A narrow set of worn marble steps leads students and Muslim guards and fears of a
beneath the rock to a rough-hewn grotto called regional conflict.
the Well of Souls. A Muslim tradition asserts the The Dome of the Rock has miraculously
waters of paradise flow under the cave, while survived looters, earthquakes, religious strife,
some Christians and Jews have long imagined bloody invasions, and more prosaic threats
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like pigeon droppings clogging its drainpipes, on the building, like peeling an onion, to under-
sending rainwater trickling into the walls. Its stand why and how it was built,” says Beatrice
striking image adorns coffee mugs, tea towels, St. Laurent, an American art historian who
and screensavers, and framed pictures of its studied the site for 30 years with her Palestinian
dome hang in mosques, living rooms, and pub- colleague, Isam Awwad, who passed away in
lic buildings around the world. 2018. Their results provide an intriguing new
“Almost two billion people are connected to take on the mysterious old shrine and the vision-
this place,” says Sheikh Omar Kiswani, director ary Muslim leader who might have built it.
of the 36-acre religious complex, as we stand
on the sunlit stone platform that supports the
dome like the setting of a jewel. “When the IX CENTURIES AFTERthe Romans
Prophet Muhammad descended from heaven, destroyed Jerusalem and its Jew-
by God’s wish, all the prophets gathered here ish Temple complex, the acrop-
to pray,” says the bearded cleric, sweeping his olis lay in ruins. For Byzantine
arms to take in the paths, gardens, courtyards, Christians, this desolation was
and buildings that are considered a single vast proof that their faith had tri-
mosque. “That’s why praying here is equal to umphed over Judaism. A Muslim
500 prayers elsewhere.” army took control of Christianity’s holiest city
Today the Dome of the Rock also stands at the without a fight just a few years after Muham-
center of one of the world’s thorniest geopolit- mad’s death in Medina in A.D. 632. When the
ical disputes, and its golden vault is a frequent new rulers sought to establish their own place
backdrop to violent confrontations between of worship in Jerusalem, the choice was obvious.
Palestinian worshippers and Israeli police. One tale has it that Muhammad’s father-in-
“Any church or synagogue in the Holy Land law, Umar, personally cleared away filth and
is a place of peace,” says Kiswani, sighing. “Only debris to expose the sacred outcrop. It would
here is it a war zone.” be several decades before a building rose over
Muslims extol the shrine as Islam’s most that chunk of revered bedrock. According to
important site after Mecca and Medina, while early sources, the architects were two Jerusalem
Palestinians honor it as the cherished symbol residents: a Muslim theologian named Raja ibn
of their nation. For many religious Jews, how- Haywa, and a Christian named Yazid ibn Salam.
ever, the structure is an abomination fated to be They didn’t have to look far for inspiration.
destroyed to make way for a new Jewish temple. The fourth-century Holy Sepulchre, with its
Some evangelical Christians also insist it must massive rotunda over what Christians believe
be replaced by a new temple to set in motion is the tomb of Jesus, lay within sight. And eight-
the return of Jesus Christ. Such a volatile mix sided churches—a shape with roots in ancient
of beliefs sends shudders through politicians Rome—stood at Caesarea on the nearby Med-
across the region, who fear any attempt to raze iterranean coast and along the Sea of Galilee.
it would result in a catastrophic war. In 1992 construction workers expanding the
Yet while the Taj Mahal and the Holy Sepul- highway from Jerusalem to Bethlehem encoun-
chre have clear origins as tombs for famous tered the ruins of another octagonal building.
people, the reason for the dome’s construction Rina Avner of the Israel Antiquities Authority
is a source of contention and uncertainty. led the subsequent excavation in an olive grove
“We have to strip away the politics imposed next to a gas station. (Continued on page 54)
42
The Cotton Merchants’
Gate, one of seven
providing access from
Jerusalem’s Old City
into the Al Aqsa com-
pound, dates to the
14th century. Israeli
security tightly con-
trols every entry point,
leading at times to
protests and violent
confrontations.
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A Jewish cemetery on
the Mount of Olives,
a ridge opposite Jeru-
salem’s Old City, offers
a sweeping view of
the gleaming golden
dome. Some Jewish
extremists see the
Islamic shrine as a blas-
phemous monument
that should be demol-
ished to make way for
a restored temple.
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SHAPED BY FAITH
Jerusalem’s Old City is layered with history, beliefs, and divisions. It’s the site of
two now vanished temples that for centuries were the central place of Jewish
worship. It’s where Jesus of Nazareth is believed to have been resurrected after
his Crucifixion. Here too is the stone Muslims revere as the spot where the Prophet
Muhammad began his nighttime journey to heaven. These events consecrated
the city to three great religions, leading to eras of both peace and bloodshed.
LEBANON
Territories in dispute Boundary claimed
Israel captured East Jerusalem, by Syria
the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip
GOLAN
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during the 1967 Six Day War. Despite
condemnation from the international
HEIGHTS
SYRIA
WE S T
WE
B AN K ST
IS R B A N K
EAST
Me d i t e r r a n e a n A EL JERUSALEM
Sea Green Line
JERUSALEM 1949-1967
AREA OLD CITY
Dead Jerusalem
GAZA Sea city limit WEST
STRIP JERUSALEM
EL
NK
ISRA
BA
I S R A E L
WEST
2 mi
2 km
EGYP
DAN
Controversial capital
JOR
A
T
O PE S
I
Israel named Jerusalem its capital in
EUR 1949 and annexed East Jerusalem from
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A
IC
A
Gulf of
Aqaba
U
Gate
Q
ry ls
ntu wal
e
-c an
t h om
M
6
1 tt
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New O
I
Gate
L
Golden
S
C H R I S T I A N Gate
HARAM
U
AL SHARIF
Dome of
M
Al Aqsa
Western Mosque
Wall
Jaffa Tower of Al Marwani
Gate David Mosque
J E W I S H
Citadel
EL
OPH
(Al Qala)
Q U A R T E R
ARMENIAN
Dung
Gate
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CITY
OF
DAVID
16th-century Zion
Ottoman walls Gate
A SITE FOR
Pieces of the past Roof refresh
Many interior mosaics have The original roofing material was
survived. Seventh-century replaced with durable lead, last-
THE CENTURIES
exterior mosaic fragments were ing more than 900 years. In 1993 Gilt co
discovered in the 1960s, offer- golden panels replaced the leaky In
ing clues to previous designs. aluminum roof built in the ’60s. la
Painted
The octagonal Dome beam
H AR AM AL SH ARI F
of the Rock has four (present day)
entrances facing the
cardinal directions.
Views over time
Early windows were marble
N
Western Dome of
Wall the Chain Present
Al Aqsa
Mosque
7th c.
Exterior
mosaic
Glass
Stained and tile
glass (exterior)
(interior)
Stone Marble
102 ft
Well of Souls
A small prayer room 65-ft
Recycled elements
Spolia, or objects reused from
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inside a natural cave lies diameter other buildings, can be found
just below the rock. in the multihued stone columns
and some of the veined marble
slabs adorning lower walls.
Later
addition
Platform Cave
South
entrance
Dome
decoration
P R ESEN T
unknown
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Wooden Exterior
rib ceramic tiles
Window over time
Inscription
Buttresses
added for
support
Wooden
truss Lead
roof
Structural support
Under the elaborate facade
are coarse stone-block walls
extending to bedrock below.
The walls have changed little
Wooden Decorative since their original construction.
screen ceiling
Interior
Inscription mosaic
Structural
Open access stone wall
to rock
Dome of the Chain
This tiled, 11-sided pavilion has
Tile spoliated columns and geomet-
ric flooring. It has undergone
Well multiple renovations alongside
of Souls its larger contemporary.
entrance
Stone paver
2 ft lower
Carpet over
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MONICA SERRANO AND PATRICIA HEALY, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: CAPITALIZING JERUSALEM: MUAWIYA’S URBAN VISION 638-680, BY BEATRICE ST. LAURENT
O REFERENCE FROM THE PERIOD EXISTS ARE AN ARTISTIC RECONSTRUCTION. AND ISAM AWWAD (FORTHCOMING); BEATRICE ST. LAURENT, BRIDGEWATER STATE UNIVERSITY; HEBA MOSTAFA, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
The Dome of the Rock is a
place for pilgrimage and
prayer for those of the
Muslim faith.
MUSLIM
RULERS
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ARTISANS
FROM DISTANT
PLACES TO
JERUSALEM.
THE RESULT
WAS A
REMARKABLE
SYNTHESIS OF
TRADITIONS
FROM THE FAR
ENDS OF THE
ISLAMIC EMPIRE.
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54 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
in the 1960s. Though Israel controls security to Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians during
on the acropolis, the king of Jordan remains what St. Laurent calls “a period of inclusivity.”
custodian of the holy site. King Hussein sold his As commander of the faithful, Muawiya asserted
London home to raise $8.2 million to purchase his role as leader of all the monotheistic faiths.
176 pounds of 24-karat gold plating to gild the That the city’s new Islamic rulers allowed Jews
exterior dome. Workers also removed modern to return and permitted Christian worship is well
aluminum and concrete repairs and replaced attested in contemporary documents, support-
them with traditional materials, including ing the idea of a fleeting era of something more
mahogany beams and lead sheets. than simple religious tolerance. Seen this way,
Awwad managed the ’90s restoration and says St. Laurent, the dome was the diadem in
allowed St. Laurent to document the process. “Muawiya’s vision of unity.”
Seizing this rare chance, the two scholars probed
the building from foundation to finial, crawl-
ing among the rafters, scrutinizing more than UCH HARMONY IS ELUSIVE in
a thousand old photographs, and locating dis- the modern Holy City. In 1984,
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carded materials from earlier renovations. encouraged by an extremist
One of their most intriguing finds is that mentor, Yehuda Etzion gathered
the famous inscription was placed over earlier 660 pounds of stolen dynamite
mosaics. Based on this and other evidence, and a handful of other ultra-
St. Laurent and Awwad argue that the building’s nationalist Jews. Their goal was
first benefactor was Abd al Malik’s predeces- to blow up the dome.
sor, the controversial founder of the Umayyad “It was necessary,” Etzion explains calmly
dynasty named Muawiya. A merchant’s son who when I visit his home inside a well-guarded West
became one of Muhammad’s scribes, Muawiya Bank settlement. “This was the only way to build
was a “brilliant and wily opportunist,” according the third temple.” Many Jews believe the dome
to one Islamic historian. He became governor of stands on the site of the two previous temples.
Syria, a region that included Jerusalem, as strife An informant tipped off police before the group
broke out among contending leaders of the could act, and Etzion spent five years in prison
nascent empire. The traumatic conflict split for conspiracy to commit a crime.
the Muslim community between what came to Other attacks were more successful. In 1982
be known as Sunnis and Shiites. an Israeli army recruit from Baltimore went on
After his rival was assassinated in 661, a shooting rampage in the shrine, killing two
Muawiya embarked on a monumental build- and seriously wounding several others. The
ing program, including repairing the walls and
gates of the Noble Sanctuary. St. Laurent and
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Jerusalem waqf, the Islamic foundation that
oversees the acropolis, claims there have been
Awwad contend that the Dome of the Rock was dozens of attempts by Jewish extremists to
part of that massive project, and it was designed damage or destroy the building.
as a seat of royal power as well as for religious Etzion now insists that the dome’s demolition
purposes. “It looks just like the crowns in its should come only with the agreement of the
mosaics,” St. Laurent notes of the building’s waqf, a highly dubious scenario. But his vision
distinct geometric shape and bejeweled exterior. has moved from fringe to mainstream. Jewish
Their most controversial claim is that the religious and political leaders who in the past
shrine was open not only to Muslims but also avoided any talk of removing the shrine now
TOP RIGHT
Sheikh Omar Kiswani,
the director of the Al
Aqsa complex, marries
a couple (wearing
white) in a ceremony
inside the Dome of
the Rock. “Any church
or synagogue in the
Holy Land is a place of
peace,” he says. “Only
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here is it a war zone.”
BOTTOM LEFT
BOTTOM RIGHT
Palestinians take
part in a protest on
steps leading up
to the dome, which
has emerged as a
potent symbol of
the Palestinian cause
for independence,
on par with Jewish
attachment to the
nearby Western Wall.
56 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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openly speak about constructing a third Jewish rioters armed with fireworks who had barricaded
temple. In the meantime, a growing number themselves in the building, but their actions
of religious Jews demand the right to pray on were denounced by Arab nations and Muslims
the platform long reserved only for Muslim around the world.
worship—an Israeli policy designed to prevent Far less media coverage attends another, qui-
friction between adherents of the two faiths. eter, crisis. In 2016 Hussein’s son and successor,
In recent years these Jews have tested the King Abdullah II, launched a multimillion-dollar
limits of that restriction, roaming the grounds project to address major problems plaguing the
in groups protected by Israeli police. A new Dome of the Rock’s interior, including buckling
right-wing Israeli government includes several mosaics, flaking plaster, and rotting wood. Much
ministers eager to allow Jewish prayer on the of the damage came from the leaky 1960s roof
acropolis, heightening tensions. or seeped into the walls when the 48 original
In April of this year police stormed the Al waterspouts clogged with pigeon dung.
Aqsa Mosque twice during Ramadan, smashing Progress has been slow. Jordanian and Al Aqsa
doors and windows, firing rubber bullets, and officials blame Israeli police, who control anyone
injuring 12 people. Police claimed they quelled and anything entering the gates.
58 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
the
S S U N L I G H T S P I L L S OV E R
Mount of Olives shortly after
dawn, Hanady Halawani meets
me outside one of the acropolis
gates. Small and thin, Halawani
is part of a movement to make
the dome a center for teaching
the Quran to Palestinian women. “We started
with 50 students and seven teachers,” she says.
“Now we have 17 teachers and 650 students—and
that is only the women’s project!” For Halawani,
religious learning and political activism are inter-
twined. “Al Aqsa is a place of worship, and our
presence there protects it from the occupiers.”
Israeli officials, suspicious of her organizing
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ing the sacred site, which is why we meet outside
the compound. Halawani claims to have been
arrested 67 times and says she has done 13 stints
in prison, including three in solitary confine-
ment. As we speak, she glances nervously at the
armed Israeli police officers who pass by.
In recent decades the dome has emerged as a
potent “national as well as a religious symbol”
Jewish men peer for Palestinians, explains Palestinian philoso-
down at a section of
the Western Wall, a pher Sari Nusseibeh. In his book-strewn office
remnant of the Jewish north of the Old City, he says the dome retains
Temple complex razed its power as a place “where heaven and earth are
by Roman forces in
A.D. 70. Beyond rises tied together.” But he worries that the mixture of
the dome that many politics and faith on both sides is growing ever
Jews and Christians more volatile. “People are getting more religious,”
believe was built on
the site of the ancient he says. Meanwhile, political extremists also are
Jewish Temple. on the rise. “It is a scary future to think about.”
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When I return to the compound, two dozen reli-
gious Jews shepherded by armed Israeli police are
circling the perimeter, some bowing and touching
their foreheads in signs of prayer. I remove my
“They interfere with everything we do!” shoes and enter the dome, encountering Fatah
exclaims Bassam al Hallaq, head of the site’s Kayem and his two sons, Ibrahim and Muham-
restoration department, as we stand beside the mad, as they stroll through the peaceful space.
low wooden rail surrounding the rock. “Every “It is sacred because this is where the Prophet
day I have a problem.” He jabs his finger at an came,” the 51-year-old accountant tells me. “And
area where the brown paint has worn off. “I want we also say it is at the heart of the capital of the
to paint this exactly the same color, but I can’t Palestinian state. We come here to pray that God
get permission.” removes all injustices.”
When Al Hallaq attempted to replace a fallen As he speaks, two pigeons flutter furiously
tile in 2019, he was handcuffed and held at in the cavernous space, looking for a way out.
a police station for more than six hours. Israeli Below, the rock stands as mute witness to a
police declined to comment on his allegations, tumultuous past as well as an uncertain future. j
but given hardening relations between Jeru-
salem’s Jews and Muslims, the difficulties of Writer Andrew Lawler is the author of Under
Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s
repairing and maintaining the ancient structure Most Contested City. Photojournalist Ziyah Gafić
are likely to worsen. focuses on Muslim communities around the world.
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Facing south toward
Mecca, Muslim wor-
shippers perform
Friday prayers outside
the Dome of the Rock.
A source of both inspi-
ration and contention,
few places on Earth are
freighted with so much
meaning for so many.
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Battered but unbowed,
bald cypresses guard
a central Florida lake-
shore. The storms that
deformed them likely
saved them from the
logger’s saw. Just a
small fraction of North
America’s ancient
cypress forests remain.
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63
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Victims of hurricanes,
sea-level rise, and
dredging, dead
cypresses line Jackeys
Creek in Leland, North
Carolina. Agriculture
and development
drained millions of
acres of forested
wetlands in the 20th
century, and saltwater
intrusion is taking an
increasing toll.
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tenth of one percent of the original bottomland found several others of similar vintage nearby.
cypress swamp left” in the country. “That’s why The data from their cores and from other bald
this place is something special.” cypresses in the Southeast form one of the lon-
gest and most accurate records of soil moisture
T
in science. Decades-long droughts, as well as wet
is an overlooked patch
H I S P L AC E ” periods known as pluvials, are clearly written in
along North Carolina’s Black River that their rings down to the exact year. These include
contains the oldest known trees east of a drought that may have doomed England’s first
the Rockies. In fact, the bald cypress is foothold in the New World, Sir Walter Raleigh’s
the fifth oldest known sexually repro- famous Lost Colony, in 1587, and a second one in
ducing tree species on the planet. The tree the 16th century that was even worse.
Stahle has just cored is barely middle-age. One “The 20th century is not representative of
cypress he discovered here in 2017 dates to at the extremes those trees have endured,” says
least 605 B.C., not long after Homer regaled the Stahle, who has cored ancient trees all over the
Greeks with the adventures of Odysseus. That world. A 16th-century megadrought “extended
makes it over 2,600 years old, and Stahle has from Mexico to Canada, from the Atlantic to the
GHOST FORESTS 67
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o VIRGINIA
O hi Norfolk
S.
T
U N I T E D S T A T E S Roa
no
M
ke
KENTUCKY
N
A
MISSOURI
N
NORTH CAROLINA
I
BLACK RIVER PRESERVE
H
ppi
Bl a
Home to a bald cypress
C
TENNESSEE dating from 605 B.C.
A
sissi
ck
I
L
A
ARKANSAS Wilmington
M is
SOUTH CAROLINA
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P
Arka Memphis Tennesse
P
nsa e
A
s
A
CONGAREE N.P.
ALABAMA Atlanta Sa
GEORGIA v L FRANCIS BEIDLER
an
MISSISSIPPI Limit of historic FOREST
na
bald cypress range
P
h
ATLANTIC
a Montgomery
am Savannah
Re
b
Ala
d
LOUISIANA
S T A
A
ahooc h e e
O Jacksonville
Mobile
C Su
Pear
wa ee
Baton Rouge
nn
l
Gulf of
CORKSCREW SWAMP
Mexico SANCTUARY
Miami
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SHRINKING Long- and short-term inundations of saline water, more
frequent with sea-level rise, can cause freshwater forests
FORESTS to recede. The result: less shelter for animals, and ghost
forests slowly turning to marshland.
Bald
cypress
F R E S H W AT E R W E T L A N D GHOST FOREST S A LT M A R S H
Less than 0.5 ppt* 2 or more ppt 18 to 35 ppt
Comparable to soft drinks Comparable to canned soups Comparable to seawater
Bald cypresses create sturdy Trees try to resist decay but begin Trunks remain in various states
networks of roots that stabilize to die off as salinity rises. Skeletal of decay or have fallen; a salt
trees within freshwater habitats. trunks dominate the landscape. marsh has taken hold.
*PARTS PER THOUSAND SALT CONCENTRATION ROSEMARY WARDLEY AND LUCAS PETRIN, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: DAVID W. STAHLE, UNIVERSITY
OF ARKANSAS; WILLIAM H. CONNER, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY; LANDFIRE, USGS, AND USDA
Pacific, and lasted almost 40 years. We haven’t
seen anything like that in the modern era.”
While these ancient trees provide a window
on our climate past, their siblings closer to the
coast are teaching us an equally important
lesson about our climate future. Even though
bald cypresses are among the most resilient
trees on Earth—able to withstand some of
the worst conditions nature can muster—
cypress forests are now dying in droves along
the coastline from Delaware to Texas, leaving
bone white skeletons in their wake.
T
HESE GHOST FORESTS are perhaps the A core from a Black River cypress reveals thick and
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clearest signal we have of the inexora- thin rings that correlate precisely with wet and dry
ble rising tide that is pushing salt water periods over centuries. The three holes on the far
right mark the ring that corresponds to A.D. 500.
deep into once freshwater ecosystems. MARK THIESSEN
Although bald cypresses are more salt
tolerant than the ashes, oaks, and other species
that share their forested wetland home, they can’t
survive long with more than two parts per thou-
sand (ppt) salt in their water. The Atlantic Ocean ecosystems on Earth. The researchers concluded
can exceed 35 ppt, and the level of the ocean is that at that pace, barring widespread protection
rising faster along the eastern seaboard than or restoration efforts, we could lose all our coastal
almost anywhere else on the planet. Sea level forested wetlands before the century’s end.
in nearby Wilmington, North Carolina’s largest
B
port, has risen about 12 inches since 1950 and is
projected to rise at least another foot by 2050. were North
A L D C Y P R E S S S WA M P S
The Black River trees aren’t currently threatened America’s Amazon 120 years ago, cov-
by salt water; the river remains a quintessential ering an estimated 40 million acres of
blackwater stream. But farther downstream in the serpentine forested wetlands of the
the Lower Cape Fear watershed, at least 800 South. They were home to magnificent
acres of forested wetland have turned into salt
marsh since the 1950s as the water has become
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ivory-billed woodpeckers, delicate Bachman’s
warblers, and swarms of Carolina parakeets, not
more brackish, according to recent research to mention a plethora of aquatic species. But
from the University of North Carolina at Wil- protecting swamps has long been a hard sell. In
mington. Once annual average salinity hits the fact, they are perhaps the only ecosystem that
2 ppt mark, the conversion from forest to marsh has been specifically targeted for destruction by
becomes inevitable. the federal government.
Cape Fear’s ghost forests, which can be seen The Swamp Land Act of 1850, and another like
from area bridges, are a microcosm of a much it, gave unclaimed federal wetlands to several
larger trend. A recent study by researchers at southern states, requiring that the proceeds from
the University of Virginia and Duke University land sales be used to drain them. None other
using satellite imagery found that the Gulf Coast than the great orator Daniel Webster summed up
and Atlantic coastal plain lost more than 5,000 the general sentiment in 1851: “[N]othing beau-
square miles, or 8 percent, of forested coastal tiful or useful grows in it; the traveler through it
wetlands between 1996 and 2016. That’s a Con- breathes miasma, and treads among all things
necticut-size swath of forest that is now mostly unwholesome and loathsome.”
salt marsh and scrub. And almost 270 square Unlike their close cousins the redwoods and
miles continue to disappear each year—more giant sequoias, cypresses had no organization
than triple the loss rate of global mangroves, like the Save the Redwoods League to lobby for
long considered one of the most threatened their protection. No Ansel Adams–worthy vistas
GHOST FORESTS 71
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that even older trees
exist along the quiet
blackwater stream,
making it worthy of
federal protection.
USING A DRONE TO CAPTURE
THE LENGTH OF THE TREE, MAC
STONE CREATED A COMPOSITE
OF 12 IMAGES.
A Florida black bear
finds a scratching post
in the National Audu-
bon Society’s Corkscrew
Swamp Sanctuary,
one of the last virgin
cypress forests left in
the United States.
Created in 1954, the
refuge was among
the first where the
importance of cypress
swamps as wildlife hab-
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TOP BOTTOM
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Fran,” Robbins says, referring to the two hur-
ricanes that scored direct hits on the Cape
Fear region in 1996, causing major flooding
and billions of dollars in damages. “Many tops
were broken off, and they were coated with salt
‘ THAT’S THE THING spray. They just started to decline.” The water
TO ADAPT.’
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Mature cypress forests are incredibly good at
cleaning up water—some have even been used
—JULIE MOORE , BIOLOGIST
to treat municipal sewage in Louisiana. But such
high levels of nutrients invite alligator weed, an
exotic species, to settle in, and it can outcompete
young cypress seedlings.
E
to show the nation what was at stake. As soon as
loggers developed cable logging, steam-powered N ROUTE TO Stone’s trees, the boats
skidders, and other technologies that enabled are eventually blocked by a phalanx
them to reach deep into the swamps, they set of cypress knees, some more than
upon them like beavers, turning acres of old- 10 feet tall, so the group abandons the
growth cypresses into siding, shingles, even kayaks and sloshes through the boot-
banana crates, until only the most isolated pock- sucking muck to the rough GPS location
ets of the ancient trees remained. The Carolina on Stone’s map. One key to the oldest trees’
parakeets, ivory bills, and Bachman’s warblers survival, Stahle believes, is that they have a cer-
eventually vanished as well. tain “gnarl factor” that makes them worthless
as lumber. The trees they find are no exception.
O
They sport massively swollen and fluted bases
N A COOL,clear autumn day with no festooned with burls the size of kitchen tables.
miasma in sight, National Geographic
Explorer Mac Stone, Stahle, and local
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The first tree’s top is split and ragged, torn off
by some punishing storm and then regrown
guide Charles Robbins launch their willy-nilly. The second has a trunk that divides
kayaks into the Black River’s labyrinth into two 50 feet up, then spirals together like
of channels, flowing with water the color of fine giant flamingos. The last has a hollow that once
bourbon. Their goal is to visit the 2,000-year-old housed a black bear big enough to scrape its
trees Stahle discovered in 2017, and to find and mark seven feet off the ground. (Eastern North
core three more denizens that Stone had spot- Carolina has some of the largest black bears
ted during an aerial survey of the area, known in the world.) Though he can’t core the hol-
locally as the Three Sisters Swamp. The stillness low tree, Stahle estimates it is likely as old as
of the swamp is palpable, broken only by paddle the other two, which have lived at least a thou-
drips and the heart-stopping flush of brightly sand years.
colored wood ducks. Without Robbins’s local “That’s the thing about old trees,” says Julie
knowledge, getting lost would be almost instan- Moore, a retired biologist from the U.S. Fish and
taneous. Robbins has lived in Wilmington since Wildlife Service, who pointed Stahle to the Black
the 1980s and has seen the ghost forests creeping River in the early 1980s when she worked for the
up the Cape Fear River, hammered by a trifecta North Carolina Natural Heritage Program. “They
of sea-level rise, dredging of the ship channel, wouldn’t have lived this long if they couldn’t
and frequent hurricanes. take it. Species that have been with us a long
“They all got beat to hell during Bertha and time have to adapt.”
78 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
A flathead catfish
hovers above a nest of
eggs even as the Black
River recedes around
it. Bald cypresses—and
their fellow swamp
species—are resistant
to floods and droughts.
Aside from catfish, the
river contains some
30 rare, endangered,
or threatened spe-
cies, many perfectly
adapted to these
extreme conditions.
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Skeletal cypresses
stalk a saltwater marsh
that is creeping up the
Sampit River in South
Carolina, a growing
trend along the East
Coast as seas rise.
Scientists say the U.S.
could lose all of its
coastal forested
wetlands by 2100.
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In a sign of a changing
world, black-bellied
whistling ducks,
common to Central
America, are moving
north into Corkscrew
Swamp Sanctuary,
nesting in old cypress
trees that may have
been used by ivory-
billed woodpeckers
and Carolina parakeets.
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An American alligator
basks in solitude amid
tupelos and ancient
cypresses in Audubon’s
Francis Beidler Forest
in South Carolina. From
providing refuge for
rare species to aiding
in flood and pollution
control in watersheds,
swamps once seen
as wastelands are now
national treasures.
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W
Many of those adaptations could prove ILLIAM CONNER interviewed for a
invaluable to humans in a hotter, drier, and research job at Clemson Univer-
stormier world. One study found that even sity’s Belle W. Baruch Institute of
young cypress trees can withstand months of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science
flooding more than 30 feet deep, while their in Georgetown, South Carolina, two
trunks, their knees, and the swampy soils weeks after Hurricane Hugo blasted the state in
around their roots absorb stormwater and car- 1989. The Category 4 storm came ashore with
bon like a sponge. Stahle has shown they can winds of nearly 140 miles an hour, damaging
survive decades-long droughts, and others some 4.4 million acres of forest and destroying 6.7
have determined that cypresses can contribute billion board feet of sawtimber—enough to build
to groundwater recharge and even filter some about 660,000 homes. That would have housed
contaminants. Their high salt tolerance often almost the entire state of West Virginia at the time.
makes them the last of the ghost forest trees “When I drove through Francis Marion National
to go. But it’s an uncanny ability to survive the Forest, all the pines were flattened to the ground,”
most powerful storms on the planet that makes says Conner, now professor emeritus at the insti-
them truly unique. tute. “All the cypress along the streams were still
84 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Basin, conservation groups have been steadily
planting cypresses to restore the region’s lost
hurricane buffers, among other benefits.
The Pontchartrain Conservancy has planted
about 92,000 trees since 2010. “We’ve been get-
ting anywhere from 65 to 98 percent survival rate
depending on the site,” says Michael Hopkins,
who runs the conservancy’s planting program.
“Some of the trees are now 30 to 40 feet tall. When
they become mature adults, they can be there for
centuries, as long as there is enough fresh water.”
A
on the Black
S T H E S H A D OW S L E N G T H E N
River, Stahle, Robbins, and Stone paddle
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set up camp on a sandbar where a copse
of ancient cypresses blots out the stars.
After Stahle found the first Roman-era trees in
the mid-’80s, the Nature Conservancy began
buying land and conservation easements around
the grove. It now owns some 17,000 acres along the
Black, including the area around the oldest trees.
Stahle doesn’t think that’s enough. A proposal to
create a Black River state park fizzled in 2017 after
some local residents expressed concern about the
effects an influx of visitors might have on the old
trees—and the quiet, rural community—even
though a statewide survey conducted that year
found strong support for state protection.
“They are at two meters of elevation, near the
coast, so they are threatened [by sea-level rise],”
Stahle says. “At that level we’ll be losing cities,
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and we can’t allow that to happen. But even the
small remnant old-growth forests can be the core
area of a broader plan of ecosystem restoration.
I’d like to see it protected as a national preserve
standing. They are incredibly wind-fast, with their or monument.” He cites the creation of South
buttresses and knees and intertwined root sys- Carolina’s Congaree National Park as an example.
tems. I’ve only seen two trees blown over in my One of Earth’s oldest trees stands a hundred
career, and both were isolated by themselves.” feet away, as it has throughout the ravages of the
That makes them particularly good for resto- past 2,600 years. Its busted top is sprinkled with
ration projects in places like Louisiana, which resurrection ferns, so named, Stahle says, because
once may have had the greatest cypress forests on they can lose nearly all the water in their tissues
the continent. Hurricane Katrina was able to flood during drought, turn gray as death, then spring
80 percent of greater New Orleans in no small part back to life, good as new, at the first rain. They
because the city was built on old cypress swamps seem a fitting accessory for this ancient member
that were logged and drained, and it eventually of a species long known as “the wood everlast-
sank many feet below sea level. But with several ing,” which with care and conservation could
freshwater diversions now in place and the closing help us adapt to a warmer, stormier world. j
of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet shipping chan-
Joel K. Bourne, Jr., a regular contributor to
nel, which was a direct conduit for salt water from National Geographic, is an award-winning writer
the Gulf of Mexico into the Lake Pontchartrain on global environmental issues.
GHOST FORESTS 85
The Leones Glacier
in Chilean Patagonia
belongs to one of the
world’s largest ice
fields. But expanding
lakes and the crack
and boom of calving
ice are evidence of the
glaciers’ accelerating
diminishment.
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Travelers to Chile’s ice fields discover that the majestic silence
of the glaciers is increasingly shattered by the din of loss.
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BY RO B E RT D RA P E R
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P H O T O G R A P H S B Y TA M A R A M E R I N O
87
An inflatable Zodiac
takes visitors through
a lagoon strewn
with “bergy bits”
and “growlers”—
pieces smaller than
an iceberg—to get a
closer look at the San
Rafael Glacier.
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‘I
AM
THE
GUARDIAN
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OF
THE
GLACIER,’ 微信公众号:全球⾸发刊王
says Andrea Carretta. He does not mean this as by someone like Carretta who visits the glacier
a boast but rather a simple acknowledgment on foot daily, often spending evenings at its
of service. The 46-year-old park ranger slowly edge in a firelit cabin bedroom where he dines
lowers himself until he is on one knee. In quiet on canned food. As a new visitor, I find the gla-
tones he asks the glacier for permission to lead cier beautiful but also terrifying, as with any
us onto the secluded ice. indomitable force.
We’re at the approach to the Exploradores It’s a bit jolting, then, to hear Carretta say,
Glacier, situated in southern Chile’s Laguna “The glacier is dying.” The words are both ten-
San Rafael National Park. It’s early September, der and factual. Born in the Italian Alps, an
a season of less rain and fewer tourists. Swol- accomplished but wayward mountain climber,
len gray clouds loom over us as the dense forest Carretta found his paradise in Patagonia in 2016.
recedes. We strap crampons onto our hiking He relocated to Chile with his wife and son,
boots and crunch our way through a terrain of who accept how his heart is divided. “I know
slick morainal sediment that suddenly cascades the glacier loves me,” he says.
into a swirling panorama of pale blue ice massifs Today it is his lot to measure with sensors
and minty glacial waterways. The primordial the steady recession of the glacier, about a yard
might of Exploradores must be respected, even every year. It’s there for Carretta to see. Where
90 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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there was ice, now there are ponds. There is no the snow-draped Andean mountain chain and
mystery here. The melting of Patagonia’s glaciers pastures, betraying only the vaguest evidence
coincides with rising temperatures that, in turn, of human habitation, such as the odd cowboy
correlate with the past half century’s accelera- on horseback flanked by his tribe of cattle dogs.
tion of carbon emissions. With the exception of urban Coyhaique, the
“The tourists who come here for a beautiful towns of Chilean Patagonia do not stray from
photo, I say to them, ‘Take your photo, and then the territory’s rough-hewn ethos. Its people are
come back in five years and take another, so that synchronized with the land rather than with
you can see the difference the way I see it,’ ” he greater civilization. The common adage here is,
says. “Maybe there’s hope. Or maybe the Earth “He who rushes in Patagonia loses time.”
will just punish us.” Patagonia’s approximately 17,300 glaciers,
strewn across Argentina and Chile’s Southern
as Chilean Patagonia is,
A S WO R L D - FA M O U S and Northern Ice Fields, symbolize the region
though, its extravagance lies in its lack of polish. above all else. Relics of an ice sheet that peaked
Here nature—hushed, magisterial—is luxury in size some 28,000 years ago, they constitute
enough. The region’s 775-mile north-south the establishing shot for the region’s seeming
byway, the Carretera Austral, winds through immutability. And, like the rest of Patagonia, the
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A blue way-finding
tool guides hikers
along the 11-mile-long
Exploradores Glacier
in Laguna San Rafael
National Park, in Chile’s
less visited Northern
Patagonian Ice Field.
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MASSIVE MELTDOWN Teresa
l f
The Northern Patagonian Ice Field—the third Melting
u
largest ice mass in the Southern Hemisphere— glaciers often
G
LAGUNA SAN E
leave behind lakes
totals 1,600 square miles and is almost a mile
xp
s
RAFAEL N.P.
lora
t e
deep in parts. This dramatic landscape is
do
not only shrinking in area: It’s also losing Mormex
a n
re
0.04 B s
more than 1.4 cubic miles in volume a year, Circo
e f
0.09 B
enough to cover Rhode Island in nearly
E l
Reicher Grosse
five feet of ice. This melting can lead to 2.98 B 2.71 B
dangerous floods; glacial lakes have
Gualas Exploradores
burst from their banks, inundating E NL 1.79 B
7.75 B
nearby communities. A RG
ED AT R Cerro San Valentín
IGHT 13,314 ft Bayo
4,058 m 0.53 B
F I E L D
Laguna
San Rafael Fiero 2.17 B
SOUTH
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0.12 B
O
q
f
FIC ui Cristal
CI
E
I C E
EAN mu of ice lost each year (B)
OC s
Leones
Northern Patagonia 0.32 B Leones
Patagonian
San Lake
Ice Field
Quintín Hyades
N
30.11 B 0.03 B
ANTARCTICA Soler
N I A
Andree 0.26 B 1.41 B
San Strindberg
Average annual ice 0.73 B
G O
Esteban
loss since 2000 Gulf Fraenkel
25 billion cubic feet (B) 0.94 B T A
5 billion
Benito Cachet Nef
11.37 B 6.34 B
P A
Norte
1 billion 0.2 B
0.63 B
Manhattan in 1.5 feet of ice HPN 1
19.06 B
H E
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O
5 mi
Cerro Arenales
N
5 km 11,276 ft
3,437 m
Acodado
23.6 B Arco
0.47 B
WORLDWIDE LOSSES
Rapid melting isn’t unique to the Steffen
36.75 B Pared Norte
Northern Ice Field. It’s happening 6.34 B
HPN 4
at an equally alarming pace all over 4.34 B
the southern Andes, where the Pared Sur 2.15 B
rate of melting has surpassed Piscis 0.41 B
the global average for decades.
.P.
Fjo
N
Southern Andes 172 EL
FA
Steffen
A
Global average 94 lb/sq. ft. NR
SA
A
GUN
LA
SOREN WALLJASPER, NGM STAFF
e r
SOURCES: INÈS DUSSAILLANT, ETHAN WELTY, AND SAMUEL NUSSBAUMER, WORLD GLACIER Tortel Bak
MONITORING SERVICE; JORGE O’KUINGHTTONS, MINISTRY OF PUBLIC WORKS OF CHILE; ESRI; SRTM
A ust
r al
Hig
hw
ay
Bahía Murta
Puerto Sánchez
LA
GU ke
N Puerto Río La
A Tranquilo ra
SA r re
NR
AFA EL N.P.
l Ca
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n
er
a
e
G
192
0
glaciers reward inspection. Each undulating ice
sculpture is different from the other. But like all
glaciers, their growth or decline is reliant on the
1945
amount of snow they receive and the tempera-
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74
19 tures that either keep them frozen or speed their
thawing and calving.
198 Key to appreciating their character is recog-
3
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surrounding Bahía Murta. “Some people didn’t our way across a rocky plain that dwindles
want to abandon their homes and had to be into a morainal shoreline of a vast glacial lake.
rescued by boat.”
I ask O’Kuinghttons if the GLOF that destroyed
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A lone boat, owned by the Diazes, sits lashed
to the boulders. We skim across the still surface
Bahía Murta was a once-in-a-lifetime occur- of Leones Lake for its entire six-mile length,
rence. “No, that was an extreme event,” he until we dead-end at the foot of the glacier at
replies. “And those will happen more frequently the eastern edge of the Northern Patagonian
in Patagonia, and with more violent intensity.” Ice Field.
One early morning, we drive southward from Owing to the remoteness of Leones Glacier,
the ramshackle town of Puerto Río Tranquilo, only a few hundred tourists visit it each year, a
veering off onto a bumpy dirt road astride tiny fraction of the traffic seen at Exploradores.
the Leones River and moving through private Leones’s facade is like that of a frostbitten old
forestland until we arrive at an unpaved park- man: unkempt, scarred, and hued with a life-
ing area. time’s complexities. For a full hour, I contemplate
Our guides, Pascual and Anita Diaz, married it. Floating on the otherwise empty lake—and
and in their 50s, then lead us on a three-hour then later, picnicking on the boulder slabs of the
hike to the Leones Glacier. Sloshing across glacier itself—I experience an almost monastic
streams, weaving through forestland that sensation. No life, no movement, no change of
had been thinned out by a GLOF two decades any sort, other than the slow ebbing of sunlight
earlier, scaling a precarious wooden cliffside that by late afternoon casts the landscape in a
ladder, and then navigating an even more pre- daguerreotype luster. Every 10 minutes or so, the
carious wooden footbridge, we at last make deep silence gives way to a sound akin to gunfire:
100 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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Uberlinda Fuentes Their window frames “All I can do is show what is happening,”
and Efrain Huelet a view of Steffen Lake. he laments.
have lived at the foot With rising tempera-
of Steffen Glacier for
more than 50 years.
tures, GLOFs caused by
melting ice are becom-
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on the Car-
MY INTERPRETER AND I CONTINUE
Their home is vulner- ing more frequent, retera Austral in the direction of the southern
able to GLOFs, glacial making life precarious
lake outburst floods. for lakeside villages. Andes, with the lavishly frothing Baker River
to our right and amply fed cattle preening all
around. We pull into a large parking lot haloed
the cracking of ice, the concussion as the glacier’s by food stores and tourist booths. Then we
weighty particles crash into the water. Just as descend on foot along a labyrinthine succession
suddenly, silence returns. of wooden stairs and boardwalks into Tortel, a
This is a casual, everyday occurrence, says 68-year-old village on stilts.
Pascual Diaz. What alarms him, he adds, is that Some 500 residents dwell in cabins suspended
the glacier’s slow but steady recession over the by wooden beams over an outflow to the Pacific
past two decades has begun to accelerate. Ocean, representing a kind of apogee in the prac-
“In these last five years,” he says, “I can see tice of living dangerously in Chilean Patagonia.
the changes very easily.” Gesturing to the other Sandwiched between the Southern Ice Field and
side of the lake, Diaz cites the brownish morainal the San Rafael Glacier at the mouth of the Baker
sediment as all that remains of a glacial surface River, Tortel feels very much like civilization’s
from just a couple of years ago. Like Andrea Car- terminus. There are no cars. Electricity is spo-
retta at Exploradores, Diaz regards Leones with radic; firewood is the village’s main source of
palpable helplessness. heating. But for the many young people whose
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At the glaciological
station on San Rafael,
Jorge O’Kuinghttons
Villena attends to
instruments that
gather and transmit
real-time data on
weather conditions,
air temperature, wind
speed, relative humid-
ity, and solar radiation
to identify ice levels.
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106 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
WHAT TO KNOW:
CHILEAN GLACIERS
By Erick Pinedo
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To help protect
its largest
wildlife preserve,
Mozambique is
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people a stake
in its success.
An
Exceptional
Wilderness
BY LEONIE JOUBERT PHOTOGRAPHS BY THOMAS PESCHAK
109
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Niassa’s elephants
suffered calamitous
losses in the 2010s,
when criminal syndi-
cates targeted East
Africa’s largest herds
for their ivory. Ele-
phants here have been
recovering slowly
since 2018, although
few big tuskers remain.
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The nonprofit
National Geographic
Society, working to
conserve Earth’s resources,
helped fund this article.
114 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
on a sandbar
J OA N A L I C O N D E S TA N D S
at the Chemambo sacred pools, her
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water droplets at her feet. She faces
the altar, a young baobab tree whose
hallowed girth is swaddled in white fab-
ric, and leads fellow pilgrims in prayer.
When the worshippers splashed in the
spring waters moments earlier, they
effervesced like children. Now they’re
quietly reverential. The drumbeat of
their dancing feet has fallen still as they
stand in devotion. The musical rattles
are respectfully quiet as the retiring sun
delivers the group into an evening of
more dancing, singing, and prayer.
The worshippers are taking part in a
chonde-chonde ceremony in Niassa,
a protected area in northern Mozam-
bique, where they lay offerings of food
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and money at the base of the baobab
and call on their ancestors, chanting
chonde (please), for happiness, health,
and abundance. Baobabs are sacred—
antechambers to the numinous, where
people gather to invoke the spirits of
their forebears. Lore protects these
trees from the feller’s axe.
Liconde is a traditional healer. She
asks for her practice to be blessed
with prosperity; she also intercedes
At the Chemambo holy on behalf of others in Mbamba, a vil-
site, a baboon nurses
her baby among Yao lage of about 2,000 Yao speakers on
pilgrims who believe the Lugenda River. Only a few have
the troop here embod- made the two-day walk to this holy
ies their ancestors.
Elsewhere in Niassa, place where people have worshipped
people have running for as long as memory. The Yao, like
battles with crop- the other ethnic groups living in the
raiding baboons, but
this troop is treated reserve—including the Macua, Ngoni,
with reverence. Matambwe, and Makonde—have a
A N E XC E P T I O N A L W I L D E R N E S S 115
Sharing the Land
Established in 1954, Niassa Special Reserve is Mozambique’s
largest protected area—covering 16,300 square miles of
L a k e
savanna and woodland, habitat for hundreds of species.
More than 60,000 people live in villages throughout the N y a s a
reserve, where programs designed to build a sustainable
M A L AW I
conservation economy are growing.
TANZANIA
D.R.C. MAP AREA AT RIGHT
Likoma I.
Lake (MALAWI)
Nyasa
MA
Niassa
Special
LA
ZAMBIA
Reserve
WI
AFRICA
MOZAMBIQUE
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AREA
ENLARGED
ZIMBABWE
INDIAN
OCEAN
MOZAMBIQUE BOTS.
SOUTH Protected
area
AFRICA
200 mi
ESWATINI Maputo 200 km
culture that glimmers with an animist connec- Hunter-gatherers, farmers, rulers of chief-
tion with nature even as they’ve blended Islam doms—people have called this region home for
into their spirituality. thousands of years. But centuries of colonization
The spirits of their ancestors endure here in the and a recent civil war have left communities in
form of baboons, ambling on all fours among the Niassa desperately poor. If this magnificent wil-
pilgrims. One or two baboons pick peanut offer- derness—ancestral lands of people who have
ings from the sand with leathery fingers. Others lived here for generations—is to be preserved
squat contemplatively on sun-toasted rocks.
Shrieking adolescents scamper after each other.
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and nurtured for the future, they must be given a
direct stake in conservation efforts and tourism.
“When people die, they often enter the body of
other creatures, like snakes or lions or elephants,”
Liconde says. Switzerland at
A RG E R T H A N
Away from this outdoor temple, baboons
have no special significance for the Yao, who
often have running battles with crop-raiding
troops. But these particular baboons are dif-
ferent. Legend has it that long ago, in a time
before Liconde’s “grandparents’ grandparents,”
L 16,300 square miles, Niassa
was established in 1954 as a
hunting reserve and made
a national protected area
in 1999. It’s one of the big-
gest African wildernesses the world has never
Mambo, a Yao chief, and his family died after heard of, time-capsuled by remoteness and still
throwing themselves into the pools following a recovering from the country’s bloody 16-year
village conflict. Their souls entered the baboons, civil war, which ended in 1992. It’s home to East
which today command respect and nourish- African stars—elephants, buffalo, lions, Afri-
ment, so people give them food offerings of can wild dogs—as well as curiosities such as the
peanuts and dried corn. Boehm’s zebra, Johnston’s impala, and Niassa
“If we don’t, the spirits will go hungry,” Liconde wildebeest. Its spreading plains are embroi-
explains. “This has been passed down and dered with woodlands, forests, and floodplains
remains the tradition.” and dotted with granite inselbergs—rocky
116 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Tunduru
T A N Z A N I A
Gomba
Negomano
Nalasi a
uvum
R
Matchedje Mbunjo
Naulala
ng o Milepa
4,216 ft
eri
1,285 m
ch
N I A S. S A S P E C I A L R E S E R V E
Lu
ts íte
r
M 4,728 ft Mecula
ui
a Matondovela 1,441 m
ng
M
Mariri
Lishengwe Mbamba
Si
l
ssa
nda
Lichinga
1,336 m Luge
Me
Lugenda
Mataca
Inselberg
Plateau
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le co 20 km
sa
Lu
o
re
M Marrupa Montepuez
Lu
Lichinga Balama
outcrops like galleons on the ocean. Lugenda River. Woven bamboo baskets on their
Since prehistoric times, people have lived and bikes brim with nyingu, a mudsucker, and cam-
traded in the region, their early presence recorded pango, a freshwater catfish plucked from the river
with Stone Age artifacts and renderings on granite in nets. The fish had been dried and smoked over
canvases. They’ve lived off the woodlands and an open-air fire back at the camp, the alchemy of
rivers, collecting wild meat, honey, fruit and nuts, curing turning their scales pewter and the flesh
firewood and medicinal plants, and catching fish. parchment-dry, giving it a shelf life of weeks.
They’ve added crop growing to their daily round,
cultivating maize, peanuts, beans, sesame, sor-
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To the Yao, fish are more than simply a source
of scarce protein. They’re as valuable as newly
ghum, and cash crops such as tobacco. Today minted coins. Villagers barter fish for cooking oil,
the more than 60,000 people in hamlets across rice, even clothes, in the local market. Mbamba
Niassa continue to live off the land, although is also still connected to age-old trading routes
the reserve’s joint managers—Mozambique’s that crisscross the area, allowing fishermen to sell
National Administration for Conservation Areas some of their catch to traders from elsewhere in
(ANAC) and the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation the reserve and beyond. “People are coming from
Society—control fishing and hunting. A licensing Cabo Delgado,” a province to the east, says Ben-
system limits when, where, and how fish can be vindo Napuanha, community manager for the
caught. And hunting wild meat for the pot, or to Niassa Carnivore Project (NCP), a conservation
sell to local traders, is banned now. People are initiative set up in 2003. “We even have people
encouraged to raise ducks, chickens, and rabbits from Tanzania buying this fish,” he adds.
as alternative sources of protein. Most of Niassa—72 percent of its land—is
One November morning, on the road nearing allocated for sport-hunting concessions, which
Mbamba, fishermen push bicycles to market private operators lease for up to 25 years with
along the same dusty track the villagers occa- the option of renewal. Each hunting block gets
sionally share with various four-footed pedestri- a quota of trophy species that can be shot, such
ans—elephants, lions, antelope—after spending as buffalo, leopards, lions, and antelope. After a
weeks at a camp nine miles downstream on the trophy animal is killed, concessions often give
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118 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Honey hunter Luís
Iwene pegs a rudimen-
tary ladder of wooden
stakes into the trunk
of a baobab so he can
ascend to an open-air
beehive high up at the
base of the crown.
The bees are calmer
at night, but without
protective gear, Iwene
will endure many stings
as he breaks off chunks
of honeycomb to take
back to his village.
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A N E XC E P T I O N A L W I L D E R N E S S 119
RIGHT
Seliano Alberto
Runcunua (at left) and
his assistant collect
honeycomb from a
hive in a dead tree.
Yao honey hunters are
led to hidden hives
by a bird—the greater
honeyguide—using
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a call-and-response
collaboration. When
recovering the prize,
the Yao leave a honey-
comb treat for the
bird to eat.
BELOW
After a successful
honey hunt, other ani-
mals, such as this honey
badger and her cub,
feast on the remaining
honey and discarded
comb. The honey bad-
ger is known to enjoy
these sweet spoils, but
a recent camera-trap
study revealed that
baboons, mongooses,
striped bush squirrels,
and crowned horn-
bills also partake.
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degrees. One soporific morning, a group of
villagers seem oblivious to the draining heat
as they hoist rocks bigger than footballs into
wire gabion frames to shore up a section of wall
along a two-and-a-half-mile trench they’d dug
around Mbamba two years earlier. About six
feet deep, the dry moat keeps elephants and
buffalo from wandering in.
The village lies in the south of the reserve
and works with NCP, which operates out of
the Mariri Environmental Centre six miles to
the east along the Lugenda River. The project
is funded largely by donors and aims to find
ways for communities across the reserve to
live in harmony with and help protect large
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In 2012, Mbamba’s leaders signed an agree-
ment with Mariri Investimentos, the orga-
nization that runs the project and leases a
224-square-mile conservation concession sur-
rounding the village. An innovative partnership,
Tchova-Tchova (meaning “You push, I push”),
emerged. Its goal is to boost community income
and food production and include villagers in
conservation projects while allowing them to
manage essential needs, such as water supply,
solar lighting, schooling for children, and crop
protection against hungry animals. Because of
Tchova-Tchova, Mbamba residents find jobs
at the environmental center and the Mpopo
Ecolodge, in construction, in road maintenance,
and as rangers.
In return, villagers are encouraged to pro-
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tect wildlife and habitat. The more animals,
the more tourism dollars, the rationale goes.
A community conservation fund adminis-
the body to villagers for its meat. Just over a tered by the villagers rewards wildlife-friendly
fourth of the reserve is for nonhunting tourism, behavior. For every tourist who visits the envi-
and one percent for special conservation areas ronmental center, Mariri Investimentos pays
where no tourism is allowed. Trophy hunting $25 into the fund. For every prize animal a tour-
accounts for more than four-fifths of the reserve’s ist spots—a lion, elephant, leopard, buffalo,
million-dollar annual tourism revenue. After the wild dog, or hyena—Mariri pays eight dollars
government takes its cut, villagers get 20 percent into the fund. For every month with no ele-
of the income to spend as they see fit. phant poaching in the vicinity, the fund earns
$155. But if Mariri’s rangers find evidence of
poaching, money is deducted—$19 for every
in this part
OV E M B E R snare, for example; $232 is docked for every lion
N of Mozambique is so
u n c o m f o r t a b l e i t ’s
sometimes called “sui-
cide month,” when the
rains are imminent and
the mercury pushes upwards of a hundred
killed; and a poached elephant takes $310 from
the community fund.
People caught poaching in Niassa mostly
want animals for meat to eat at home or to sell
for cash to buy maize or satisfy other needs. The
Tchova-Tchova partnership between Mbamba
A N E XC E P T I O N A L W I L D E R N E S S 121
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Niassa-born Eusebio
Waiti learned track-
ing and bush skills as
a subsistence hunter,
expertise he now
applies in his role as
a conservation field-
worker. He radio-tracks
lions, manages more
than a hundred
camera traps, and
works to find solutions
to “problem lions”
reported by villagers.
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and Mariri might show how a collaboration
of this kind can address poaching for the pot
across the reserve. Since its inception, snaring
for bushmeat has dropped dramatically. There’s
a noticeable increase in ungulates around
Mbamba, such as waterbuck and impalas,
along with warthogs and hippos, suggesting
that wildlife is benefiting. Some carnivores are
doing better in this part of the reserve too. The
number of lion prides has increased from two
to seven since the agreement came into play,
according to NCP. Leopards and wild dogs are
also recovering, partly because of a greater
abundance of prey.
This is the kind of community partnership
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ANAC expects of concessionaires, conservation-
ists, and NGOs, says Niassa’s warden, Terêncio
Tamele. “It’s part of the contract and perfor-
mance review of the concessionaires,” he says.
The collaboration could include conservation,
health, education, and employment programs,
helping keep the wilderness intact.
Just over a decade ago some 12,000 elephants
roamed Niassa’s wilds, but by 2018 a fever of
ivory poaching had reduced the number to an
estimated 3,150. (A pyramid of elephant skulls
beneath a marula tree at Mariri Environmental
Centre stands as a poignant memorial.)
During the past half decade, ivory poaching has
slowed, and rangers and villagers report bigger
herds, with more babies and adolescents; ele-
phant numbers are up to nearly 4,000. Around
Mbamba, the villagers’ anti-elephant trench is
the first of its kind in Niassa, a nonlethal way to
prevent dangerous encounters. More than 200
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villagers signed up for the grueling three-month
excavation, paid for mostly by NCP, with a quar- H E TOW E R I N G BAO BA B’ S
ter coming from the Tchova-Tchova fund—a
dollar for every foot of trench, bringing $19,000
into households.
The day I saw workers slogging through the
morning heat to reinforce the trench, some men
were tending a young banana plantation inside
T bark is as dimpled as the
surface of the moon under
the campfire’s flickering
light, which throws into
relief scars from hand-
hewn stakes hammered into the bark.
the new perimeter, out of reach of hungry ele- Thup-thup-thup!
phants. One elderly man dragged a hose from Mbamba villager Luís Iwene, 28, is climbing
tree to tree, irrigating each with water drawn toward the crown the way many elders have
from a nearby well by a solar-powered pump. before him. He pounds fresh stakes into the
Plump bananas hung like baseball mitts from trunk and hoists his tools as he goes: a coil of
the slender adolescent trees, safe from peckish rope made from knotted lengths of bark; a plastic
elephants. Villagers say they now get to keep the bucket; a large kitchen knife hanging from his
mangoes and papayas from trees growing along waistband. He’s bare-chested and barefooted,
Mbamba’s streets for themselves, since they no wearing nothing more than cutoff denims as
longer have to compete with visiting elephants. he scales the bole with the ease of a high-wire
124 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
LEFT
BELOW
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Yao villagers in
Mbamba dig a two-
and-a-half-mile trench
around their settle-
ment. Like a dry moat,
this is the first of its
kind in Niassa and one
of several nonlethal
ways to avoid crop
damage by elephants
and deadly encoun-
ters with them.
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The skulls of buffalo
shot as trophies are
measured before
being shipped to their
respective hunters.
Hunting tourism bol-
sters Niassa’s economy,
along with income
from safaris and con-
servation projects.
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acrobat. He squats on the rungs, methodically
pegging the next steps of his rudimentary ladder.
Thup-thup-thup-thup-thup!
The prize awaits above, tucked into the crook
of a branch high overhead: folds of honeycomb,
brimming with liquid gold, shimmering under
the buzzing attention of myriad bees. Come
nightfall, bees are dozy and less likely to sting,
which makes a nocturnal honey raid safer.
Thup-thup-thup!
At the top, Iwene steadies himself with one
hand, balances on the pegs, and coaxes to life
the smoldering tip of a bundle of dried thatching
grass, nearly half as long as he is tall. From the
ground, it looks no bigger than a burning match-
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stick and Iwene himself no taller than a child.
The baobab is still a youngster—maybe 500 years
old—for a species that can live 2,000 years; even
so, it’s a giant that reduces smaller surrounding
woodland trees to Giacometti stick figures.
Yao have long used the mastery of fire and
smoke to conjure honey from behind bees’
defensive veils, although their forays don’t go
unpunished. Honey collectors get stung, and
there are times, Iwene says, when you have to
give up. “For sure, we run sometimes. If the
fire goes out or if the bees come in swarms,
that’s it—you run.” Tonight the bees acquiesce.
Iwene is free to break off curtains of honeycomb,
occasionally swatting at his face while he drops
chunks into the bucket.
He learned to harvest wild honey under the
tutelage of other masters, observing how expe-
rienced collectors climb trees to tap hives. He
undertakes these feats of dexterity about 10
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times a year. He seldom removes more than half
a bucketful of honeycomb, leaving plenty for the
hive. This is enough to take home to Mbamba, call sego. It’s one of few animals that can digest
about 12 miles from here, where Iwene and his beeswax. When the birds see a person, and a
family will eagerly spoon it up. If it’s still fresh, hive is not far away, they utter a chittering Morse
they may eat pieces of honeycomb pulsing with code—tji-tji-tji tji-tji-tji—to signal there’s honey
bee brood, which is less sweet but rich in protein. to be had nearby. An attentive Yao answers with
He may also trade some honey for cash or barter a distinctive brrrr-HM, brrrr-HM, brrr-HM.
it with fellow villagers for other kinds of foods. The honeyguide leads the way, flitting from
Forest fruits such as tamarinds, marulas, and tree to tree with the honey hunter in pursuit,
baobabs wax and wane with the seasons, but calling back and forth as they go. When hunter
bees are always working, which is why honey tra- and bird reach the hive, he pacifies the bees
ditionally has been an important source of sweet with smoke, chops down the tree, cracks open
food for the Yao. Some hives are hidden inside the bole with an axe, and pulls the honeycomb
woody nooks or hollow trees far smaller than free. Then he shares the loot, leaving a pile of
baobabs. To get to them, Yao honey collectors sugar-laden honeycomb for his guide.
have struck up a mutually beneficial relation- In 2015, evolutionary biologist Claire Spottis-
ship with the greater honeyguide, a bird they woode, from the University of Cape Town, in
130 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
Worshippers at
the sacred place of
Chemambo give
food offerings to the
ancestor baboons.
In the dry season,
during a days-long
pilgrimage, followers
from across Niassa
and beyond pray
beneath a hallowed
baobab and ask
their ancestors for
happiness, health,
and abundance.
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South Africa, and Cambridge University, in the In South Africa, “wild honey hunting is now very
U.K., teamed up with Yao honey hunters Orlando rare,” according to Spottiswoode. “The birds con-
Yassene and Musaji Muamedi to find out if the tinue to call us, but few people listen.” If it’s easier
birds are responding to any old sound or specif- to buy refined sugar in Mbamba’s marketplace,
ically to the Yao call. The team walked through why take on a task as laborious and potentially
the woodlands on a series of simulated honey painful as collecting honey high up in a baobab
hunts, playing three different sounds on a por- or from deep inside a woodland tree?
table speaker: the Yao’s brrrr-HM call; arbitrary After Iwene lowers his bucket to the end of
human sounds; and other animal sounds, such the bark rope, he scampers down the pegged
as the call of a ring-necked dove. The segos were rungs with ease. On the ground, forearms
at least twice as responsive to the brrrr-HM call glistening with honey in the firelight, his face
and led the team to hives three times more often breaks into a satisfied grin. Tonight is a sweet
in response to it. night in Niassa’s remote woodlands. j
There’s no guarantee that this ancient, sing-
Leonie Joubert, a South African science writer, has
song cooperation, which has already vanished written more than 10 books—and our story in the
from many parts of Africa, will endure in Niassa. July 2021 issue about wildlife in the Kalahari.
A N E XC E P T I O N A L W I L D E R N E S S 131
INSTAGRAM
ANDREA FRAZZETTA
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