What It Takes to Keep America Beautiful

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The U.S. is home to some of the most beautiful, incomparable places on the planet, from the pristine Shi Shi Beach at the Makah Reservation in Washington State to the Couturie Forest in New Orleans. But as climate change and development continue to threaten the country’s natural treasures, we explore the limits of traditional conservation and learn how innovation and Indigenous knowledge could shift how we protect the environment in the 21st century. For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard. Want more? Learn about the Makah’s efforts to resume their practice of hunting gray whales, which was banned in the mid-1900s, in this article by Emma Marris. See even more of America’s most spectacular locations and diverse species in America the Beautiful. Hosted by Michael B. Jordan, this docuseries is now streaming on Disney+. As massive wildfires continue to wreak havoc in the American West, Indigenous people are reviving centuries-old cultural burning practices to protect their communities. Learn more about cultural burning in the Overheard episode “This Indigenous Practice Fights Fire With Fire.” Also explore: See more of photographer Stephen Wilkes’s Day to Night photos and learn about how he creates them in this article. Read Emma Marris’s article about the Indigenous people living in Peru’s Manú National Park. For subscribers: Check out Emma Marris’s article on conservation in the upcoming issue of National Geographic magazine. Available online here in September. How many counties in the contiguous U.S. have water or land worth conserving? Every single one. Explore this map to see what value each has for conservation. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you in part by Geico, proud sponsor of National Geographic.
0:05.1	Geico, 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.
0:16.0	When we got in and we were on the beach, the first thing you noticed is the dramatic, you know,
0:21.9	sea stacks that from a distance just, you know, they look like mountain ranges almost, but they're so close.
0:34.2	In May 2022, National Geographic photographer Steven Wilkes documented one of America's
0:39.2	most beautiful places, Shishai, a very remote breathtaking beach in Olympic National Park
0:45.0	at the northwest corner of Washington State. And as Steven was saying, the key feature of Shishai
0:50.4	is its sea stacks. These rock towers, some over a hundred feet tall that are spread out just off the
0:56.3	shore. And suddenly you look at them closely and you begin to see they have trees growing out of
1:01.6	them and some of them have holes in them so they're caves inside these things. And it sort of
1:07.7	takes your breath away to be frank with you. The Macaw Nation who have lived near Nia Bay for more
1:14.5	than 3,800 years historically managed the beach. The name Shishai is the Macaw word for smelt,
1:20.7	a species of small silverfish that they caught there. But I have to say I've never seen anything
1:27.0	quite like, you know, Shishai. It's the physical scale of it, maybe also add in the sprinkle of the
1:34.4	adventure to get into that place. To get to Shishai, Steven and his crew spent about four hours
1:42.5	hiking through the Olympic wilderness. You have to hike through this rainforest, which is in
1:48.8	its own right, you know, really kind of mystical. It's run by the Macaw Nation, you know, and Macaw
1:54.7	Tribe. They control that area. And so they've done it in a very beautiful way. You know, it's all
1:59.6	this natural sort of, it almost looks like logs that were, you know, just hune specifically just as a
2:07.2	pathway. They had to deal with hours of trudging through mud that was sometimes up to their shins,
2:14.6	while carrying backpacks that contained as much as 60 pounds of gear. And one morning,
2:19.8	Steven's team woke up to find Cougar prints at their campsite.
	...

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