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‘WE REALLY NEED TO HEAR THESE POOR TREES SCREAM’

Saturday, April 16, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we get the behind-the-scenes story of forests on the frontlines of our world’s future, witness the uplift of Guatemala’s Semana Santa, document how solar-powered boats are changing southwestern India … and see how one misty woodland resembles ‘a holy place.’

PHOTOGRAPH BY KEITH LADZINSKI

Seventeen photographers. Twenty-seven locations around the world. More than 30 global forest experts.

That’s how National Geographic got the stunning photographs and video for its special May issue (pictured above, the cover image of a California sequoia). “They all make the Earth spin,” is the way Editor at Large Kurt Mutchler characterizes the team’s efforts.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KEITH LADZINSKI

In coordinating the work, Mutchler found himself tearing up at a video and audio of ecologist Craig Allen on the future of forests. Many nights, he’d grab his smartphone after getting pinged on WhatsApp from photographer Jasper Doest in Gabon. Long after his first look, Mutchler is haunted by Keith Ladzinski’s image from Colorado of a tree charred and dead after a 2020 wildfire, cut and ground to mulch, its “ashes” dumped by helicopter on a hillside (above) to prevent erosion—and, perhaps, to save other trees.

The project leans into solutions to maintain the world’s vital forests. Mutchler, thinking of that dead tree, quotes a researcher in saying: “We really need to hear these poor trees scream. … We need to listen to them.”

See the cover story here. Below are a few images from the issue.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF FROST

Threatened giants: In California’s Sequoia National Forest, embers rain from the crown of a giant sequoia ignited by a windblown ember in September 2021. Dead twigs and leaf litter can collect in the crowns and cavities of older trees, providing fuel for fire. This tree in Long Meadow Grove survived, Nat Geo reports.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MAC STONE

Ghost forests: Rising seas and dredging have pushed seawater into aquifers and freshwater wetlands, killing vegetation like these dead bald cypresses near North Carolina’s Cape Fear River. Cypress stands all over the Southeast have been decimated since the 19th century by logging and draining of wetlands—and “ghost forests” remain in their stead, Nat Geo reports.

PHOTOGRAPH BY AMY TOENSING

The way back: American chestnuts haven’t thrived in the wild for decades, but scientists are seeking to end that. Above, Nat Geo Explorer Amy Toensing documents a lab worker removing the spiky green bur from chestnuts pollinated with transgenic pollen. Each generation of the once-ubiquitous trees has stronger resistance to a blight that almost made them extinct—and is closer to survival in the wild, Nat Geo reports in this story on solutions.

PHOTOGRAPH BY VICTOR MORIYAMA

Reforesting: Workers on a former eucalyptus plantation are transforming it into a native forest on an experimental farm run by the University of São Paulo. Anderson da Silva Lima and Eder Araujo plant seedlings of Rapanea trees, a species prevalent in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Here are more solutions.

PHOTOGRAPH BY IAN TEH

Restoring complex forests: Photographer Ian Teh captures the Langur Way Canopy Walk, which traverses a timeless rainforest on Malaysia’s Penang Island. Restoring complex forests could help bridge the gap to a healthier planet.

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STORIES WE'RE FOLLOWING

Winning photos from the 2022 iPhone Macro Challenge

See how Holy Week unites one nation

In Jerusalem, looking for traces of the last days of Jesus

Selling prints to help Ukraine

R.I.P. Letizia Battaglia, ‘the real godmother of documentary photography in the 20th century’

Nat Geo Explorer and photographer Amy Toensing speaks April 20 on ‘A World of Widows’ and ‘Jersey Shore’

EARTH MONTH: ARTICLE OF THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCIA KEBBON, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

PHOTOGRAPH BY SARA HYLTON

Sun-powered boats? Solar panels are part of an initiative to rehabilitate the area of Lake Vembanad, the largest lake in India. The traditional boats that once carried rice and spices up the waterway now ferry tourists through a 560-mile network of scenic canals and lagoons through the southern state of Kerala. The solar panels initiative was designed to alleviate some of the pollution from the old-world houseboats and make tourism more sustainable, Nat Geo reports. (Pictured above, photographer and Nat Geo Explorer Sara Hylton shows one of the boats on the water.)

IN A FEW WORDS

QUOTE

Don’t be scared of what excites you. Always stay curious about yourself and the people and places around you. Focus on the work and goals you have set for yourself, and never compare yourself to others.

Ingi Mehus

Storyteller, Nat Geo Explorer

LAST GLIMPSE

PHOTOGRAPH BY ORSOLYA HAARBERG

Intact for centuries: Norway’s Orsolya Haarberg got the Nat Geo assignment to show several of Europe’s old-growth woodlands, which through inaccessibility or protection have escaped the saw. The landscape architect-turned-photographer was moved. “Hiking off-trail through the foggy laurel forests of Madeira (pictured above), I was enveloped by trees that may have been up to 800 years old and whose trunks provided me with shelter when clouds released a sudden downpour,” she wrote. “It felt like entering a holy space.”

This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Jen Tse, and Monica Williams. Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea, a link, a place in nature that you revere? We’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. Thanks for reading!

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