Meet The Refugees Fighting for the Future of New Orleans
More than a decade after Katrina, a proposed Entergy gas plant threatens New Orleans East and the community that rebuilt it despite a legacy of environmental racism. ...
Fulbright National Geographic Stories
Chasing Truth (Part II): From the Experts
This story is the continuation of "Chasing Truth: Part I." "From the Experts" explores insights from professionals in the plastics industry on Taiwan's recycling situation, the different health effects of plastic, and what they want you to know about what ...
Finding the World’s Most Endangered Gull
When I set out to find a nesting colony of the most endangered gull in the world, I fully expected to fail. Not that it should be hard to find if you’re in the right place, and I was—...
Another Kind of Migration: A Visit to Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
There has been plenty of news coverage lately about the state of foreign relations between Mexico and the United States. But there is one issue — or rather, species — that is continuing to bring the countries together: monarch butterflies. This week, ...
Kyrgyzstan: 85 Years of Memories
Although history is often talked about as something as objective as mathematics, it, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. That historic events happened is perhaps the only thing semi-consistent across cultures; but how these events were ...
Chasing Truth (Part 1): Taxi Rides & Plastic Plants
“环保 (huánbǎo)? Environmental Protection? That’s good. We need that here.” The cab driver nodded his head in approval. “你看 (Nǐ kàn), Look, there’s trash everywhere.” I glanced out the window. We were heading north on Taoyuan’s ...
Just a Seagull? Nope
There's no such thing as a seagull, according to certain pedants. How can that be? Because it's a gull—actually, one of about fifty gull species living in habitats all over the world, oceanic and otherwise. They range from the ...
A Lesson from Mexico: How to Forgive Historical Wrongs to Do Right in the Present
Sometime in the past ten years, a statue of a child went missing from a little-known park in Mexico City. The details of the disappearance are a mystery, but the reasons for it are easy to divine. The statue depicted ...
Inside the Incinerator: A Look Into Taipei City’s First Waste Facility
First it was the smell. Then it was the tennis courts. Third, the sudden realization that they were prepared for visitors—really, really prepared for visitors....
Cliffhanger! Risking Life and Limb for Fluffy Seabirds
Supposedly I didn’t show any fear during my first abseil, down a 70-meter seacliff south of Dunedin, New Zealand. Thank you, poker face. But in truth, it was amazement more than fear that I felt while hanging vertiginously over ...
Where the Glaciers Vanish
Where the Glaciers Vanish (Patagonia’s Untold Stories) Halfway buried in the sand lays the forgotten skull of a whale. Its flesh has been removed by the gentle erosion sustained by the pulsating sea. Its white form contrasts the dark ...
Donde los Glaciares Desaparecen
(Relatos inéditos de la Patagonia) Parcialmente enterrado en la arena reposa el olvidado cráneo de una ballena adulta. Sus tejidos han sido lentamente erosionados por el incesante vaivén de las olas. La blanca escultura ósea contrasta con ...
Kok Boru: Do you have what it takes to play this Central Asian sport?
From the outside, it looks like pure chaos. Men are shouting and pulling reigns. Horses are protesting and charging from one direction to another. Hooves beat the earth, sending dust soaring in the air. A man in a blue ...
Friendship, Luck, and Play: A Story of Refugee Resilience
When Señora Lucia Michelena looks at you, she doesn’t blink. She knows what she sees. Ha sufrido mucho, I was told before I met her. She has suffered so much. But during our conversation, Lucia Michelena had ...
Return of the Penguins
This is Part Four of “Voyage of the Yellow-eyed Penguin” (See Part One, Part Two, Part Three) Last explorations of Eden 14 November 2017 Waterfall Inlet and Lake Hinemoa Today started out pretty OK. Just another morning in the subantarctic, in an ...