In der aktuellen Ausgabe von National Geographic US

• OASIS: FARMING THE DESERT
  For thousands of years, humans have done more than survive in the deserts of Arabia—they’ve thrived there. Now archaeobotanists are uncovering the secrets of their success: The crops they learned to cultivate in challenging conditions.
• FROM SOURCE TO SEA
  A conservation photographer who normally focuses on the ocean immersed himself in the Amazon Basin to reveal its aquatic wonders—and its challenges.
• NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORERS
  These contributors have received funding from the National Geographic Society, which is committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world.
• RELEARNING THE AMAZON
  For 500 years, outsiders have misunderstood the world’s largest rainforest. That’s finally changing.
• THE AQUATIC AMAZON
  Spanning the continent, the basins of the mighty Amazon River and its tributaries contain and support the world’s largest rainforest and countless species of flora and fauna. Originating in the high Andes, then swiftly flowing into the basin, the waters cycle from ice melt and cloud to torrential rains that seasonally flood the densely forested valleys—a perpetual exchange between the terrestrial and the aquatic.
• THE FLYING RIVERS
  High in the Andes, a land of towering glaciers, dense cloud forests, and elusive bears shapes the Amazon River Basin.
• LAND OF THE ANDEAN BEAR
  The only bear species in South America, these stout, striped-face bears are adapted to the misty mountains of the Andes, where they’re believed to play a key role in forest regeneration.
• UPLAND WETLAND
  High in the Andes are fragile habitats saturated with water. The region’s flora and fauna have adapted to thin air, winds, intense solar radiation, and wide swings in daily temperatures between warm days and freezing nights.
• PEAK OBSERVATIONS
  DATA COLLECTED BY THIS HIGH-ELEVATION WEATHER STATION ARE REVEALING THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE NEAR THE HEADWATERS OF THE AMAZON RIVER.
• ‘NO ONE KNOWS THIS PLACE’
  The remote origins of Bolivia’s Sécure River harbor a natural paradise.
• LIFE IN THE HEADWATERS
  Turbulent white water rushes through many Amazonian tributaries, but in Bolivia’s Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory, clear water flows along the piedmont below a sub-Andean range. Scientists are beginning to study this largely unexplored landscape.
• GOLD’S UNSEEN COST
  AS PROSPECTING RAZES PARTS OF THE AMAZON, RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING THE DAMAGE LOOK FOR WAYS TO BRING ABOUT THE BEST POSSIBLE FUTURE FOR THE RAINFOREST.
• AMAZON IN THE BALANCE
  Inhabited by humanity for millennia, the Amazon Basin is increasingly under pressure as development drives ever deeper into remote forest. Leading threats outlined here have the potential to permanently harm fragile ecosystems. Illicit activity exacerbates these problems, disrupting conservation efforts and the lives of those who call the Amazon home.
• LESSONS IN THE FLOODED FOREST
  A Brazilian ecologist learns what he doesn’t know from the ribeirinhos, or river people, of the Amazon.
• UNDER WATER
  The Amazon and its tributaries rise and fall as waters twist and turn through nearly continent-wide lowlands. Local rains flood large regions of wetlands between rivers, and seasonal influxes of rainfall that start in the Andes and pulse downstream lead to large-scale flooding as rivers overflow their banks into forests, plains, and lakes.
• THE UNDERWATER WOODS
  TWO SCIENTISTS MONITOR THE FLOOD PRESSURE IN LOW-ELEVATION AMAZONIAN FORESTS—AND RACE TO PROTECT THEM FROM INCREASING ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMES.
• PREDATORS OF THE AMAZON
  Rich biodiversity and extreme seasonal changes fuel the relentless evolution of Amazonian predators, giving rise to an astonishing variety of survival strategies and weaponry.
• TRICKSTERS, ICONS, AND THIEVES
  Whether seen as shape-shifting spirits or a fisherman’s bane, pink dolphins dominate the Amazon and its estuaries. But as the region changes, the future of the world’s largest freshwater dolphin is uncertain.
• DOLPHIN DIPLOMACY
  KEEPING THE PEACE BETWEEN LOCAL FISHERMEN AND THE REGION’S RIVER DOLPHINS IS JUST ONE PART OF THE WORK TO PROTECT THIS ICONIC SPECIES OF THE AMAZON.
• RIVER INTO SEA
  The mouth of the Amazon doesn’t mark the end of the world’s most powerful river but the beginning of a surprising aquatic realm.
• THE PLUME
  The Amazon River doesn’t end at its many gaping mouths. Instead, it becomes a massive, fluctuating plume of fresh water that spreads above coastal reefs and fans out across the Atlantic. This colossal flow into the ocean can travel as far north as the Caribbean Sea, covering some 640,000 square miles at its maximum extent.
• OCEANIC AMAZON
  As the Amazon powers into the Atlantic through its estuary on Brazil’s coast, the river’s massive discharge creates a plume of fresh water extending miles into the salty ocean. Within this transition zone, two unique habitats thrive: freshwater mangroves and a wide reef system.