National Geographic - March 2022

IN THE ALP S, THE ECONOMY AND CULTURE
REVOLVE AROUND SNOWY WINTERS.

NOW THERE’S A SCRAMBLE
TO PRESERVE SNOW AND ICE

THREATENED BY WARMING.

WINTER

At Davos, Switzerland,
in late October, a
skier navigates a cross-
country trail made
of artificial snow pro-
duced the previous
winter. It was stored
over the summer in a
20-foot mound under
a 16-inch layer of
sawdust, then spread
on the trail for the
new season.

As the climate has
warmed since the 19th
century—and espe-
cially in the past few
decades—the Alps have
lost two-thirds of the
ice from their roughly
4,000 glaciers. On the
Pers Glacier in eastern
Switzerland, geophys-
icist Christine Seupel,
engineer Dieter Müller,
and glaciologist Andri
Moll measure the ice
thickness with ground-
penetrating radar.

60 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

S AV I N G W I N T E R 61

62 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Precious snow is
covered with fabric
to protect it from melt-
ing over the summer
at Diavolezza, a Swiss
resort. Natural snow
has become so unre-
liable in the Alps that
the ski industry now
depends on making it
artificially and storing
it in depots.

S AV I N G W I N T E R 63

SURROUNDED BY
RUGGED PEAKS
SO HIGH THEY TEAR
CLOUDS APART,

the tractor-size groomer backs over a 40-foot-tall Researchers explore
mound of compacted snow, unrolling a bolt of an ice cave in the Pers
white fabric. On top of the mound, six workers Glacier. Such caves
are stitching fabric panels together with a hand- form naturally, but
held, heavy-duty sewing machine. It’s June at the recent expansion
Kitzsteinhorn in Austria, one of the highest and of this one is a sign of
coldest ski areas in the Alps, and meltwater is how rapidly glaciers
gushing into ravines on the flanks of the moun- are retreating. Some
tain. But up on the glacier, the slope maintenance have all but vanished,
crew is preparing for the next season. leaving locals with a
deep sense of loss.
Even at 10,000 feet, counting on natural snow By 2100, if climate-
has become too risky. So the team led by techni- warming greenhouse
cal manager Günther Brennsteiner is taking out gas emissions aren’t
insurance. They’ve spent a month plowing the cut dramatically, the
last of this season’s snow into eight multistory Alps could be
mounds, of which the largest are bigger than foot- nearly ice free.
ball fields. They’re now spending another month
The National covering the mounds with fabric to insulate them
Geographic Society, over the summer. When the new season begins,
committed to illuminat- if it’s too warm for fresh snow to fall—or even for
ing and protecting the artificial snow to be made—dump trucks and
wonder of our world, groomers will spread old snow on the slopes.
has funded Explorer Ciril
Jazbec’s work on climate Figuring out how to stockpile snow at this
change since 2019. scale hasn’t been easy, says one of the workers,
Hannes Posch. Before the crew started stitch-
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY ing the panels together, wind gusts sometimes
ripped them apart, uncovering the mounds.
Other times, the fabric froze solid into the snow.

“Everything that could go wrong, has,” Posch
says, as he zip-ties a sandbag to the fabric. Once,
at the nearby resort of Kitzbühel, lightning set a

64 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

fabric-covered snow depot like this ablaze, and in one of the world’s most densely populated
30 firefighters battled the flames for hours. Snow mountain ranges, the implications are terrifying.
is that precious these days. The economy here depends on snow to lure 120
million tourists a year—far more than visit the
“With the warming climate, everything has United States. Besides working at Kitzsteinhorn,
changed,” Brennsteiner says. He started working Brennsteiner serves as mayor of Niedernsill, a
here 31 years ago, during what now seem like the village of 2,800 at the foot of the mountain.
glory years of Alpine skiing. There’s hardly a family in the village that doesn’t
depend on winter, he says. Without snow, it
Alpine winters are dying. Since the 19th might shrink to a thousand people.
century, average temperatures in these moun-
tains have risen by two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 “We wouldn’t have children in kindergarten,”
Fahrenheit—about twice the global average. Brennsteiner says, describing a downward spiral.
Snow is arriving later in the season and melt- “This is the foundation of our lives here.”
ing sooner.  The Alps as a whole have lost about
a month of snow cover, according to scien- To save themselves, the people of the Alps
tists who analyzed data from more than 2,000 are going to dramatic lengths. An estimated
weather stations. 100,000 snowmaking machines now power the
Alpine ski industry, enough to blanket an area
To many of the 14 million people who live

S AV I N G W I N T E R 65

Swiss glaciologist (and amateur violinist) Felix Keller, who grew up near the Morteratsch Glacier,
has a plan to stop its retreat. “People say this is completely nuts,” he admits. “Maybe they’re right.”

66 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Keller’s plan is to recycle glacial meltwater into snow. Here his team tests a prototype of one
of the “snow cables” that, hanging over the glacier, would shower it with 30 feet of snow annually.

S A V I N G W I N T E R 67

the size of New York City within hours. Beyond
snow depots like Kitzsteinhorn’s, desperate
locals are swaddling the ice on a few of the Alps’
roughly 4,000 glaciers, to try to delay the rapid
melt caused by global warming. In one visionary
scheme, Swiss scientists hope to save a glacier by
spraying a swath of it with human-made snow. 

Some of these methods are ingenious and
tantalizing; others are environmentally and
economically questionable. All are driven by a
profound apprehension: Without winter, what
would our lives here be?

L I K E B R E N N ST E I N E R and photographer Ciril Where tourists now
Jazbec, I was lucky enough to grow up in the Alps walk on a suspension
at a time when snow was abundant. I remember bridge, several hun-
the excitement of leaving my tiny footprints dred feet above a
in the season’s first snowfall; I remember meltwater torrent,
the color of my dad’s cheeks as he shoveled the they used to walk
house free, again and again. My parents clapped across ice on the snout
my first skis on my feet before I was three. of Switzerland’s Trift
Glacier. The lake
That period turns out to have been a historical didn’t exist before
blip. It was only in the second half of the 20th this century; the
century that cold, snowy winters became a boon bridge was first built
for the Alps. Before then they were a harsh bur- in 2004. A power
den, attributed in folklore to wicked demons. company plans to
My generation is among the last to have heard put a dam here.
oral histories of the struggle to survive here, back
when the economy was based on farming. Snow “The scales turned against mountain farming,”
used to cover tiny plots of land for months. Ava- he says. Some of his siblings left the secluded
lanches thundered down the mountainsides, valley, but he stayed.
burying villages. One of my grandma’s nine
siblings, Walter, died in one. He was 24. Winter tourism, Wolf and other villagers reck-
oned, was the only thing that could save them. In
When food was scarce—and it generally was— desperation, they sold livestock and put up their
children from the poorest pockets of the Alps land against loans to invest in a cable car. Ischgl
were forced to trek to lowland markets, where stood to lose everything, but the gamble paid off.
they sold themselves into seasonal bondage as In 1963, the cable car began pulling tourists up
farmworkers, typically from March to October. “A the mountains, and locals out of poverty. Around
barely concealed slave market,” the Cincinnati the Alps, a similar transition was under way.
Times-Star wrote in 1908, describing one such
market in Friedrichshafen, in southern Germany. Today, a four-star hotel stands on the
It reported as many as 400 boys and girls up for 400-year-old farm where Wolf was born. It’s
barter, some as young as six, “as if they were a lot surrounded in Ischgl by luxury chalets with
of calves or chickens.” The practice lasted well Jacuzzis, fine restaurants, and a vibrant nightlife
into the 20th century.

After World War II, an economic boom created
a thriving middle class across Europe—but not,
at first, in the high Alps. The steep mountain-
sides made it impossible for farms to expand or
to deploy the modern machinery that allowed
others to prosper, says Johann Wolf, who was
born in the remote village of Ischgl, Austria,
in 1929, during the coldest winter on record.

68 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

scene that has hosted concerts by Rihanna, Pink, foretaste of such a world, when it became an
and Lenny Kravitz. Next December, Ischgl is set early hot spot in the COVID-19 pandemic. Flee-
to open thermal baths and an ice-skating rink.  ing tourists helped spread the virus in Europe.

Many locals still see themselves as down-to- The pandemic shut down ski tourism across
earth farmers who love their valley. Wolf’s son the Alps. Millions of hotel beds stayed cold. But
Hannes and 26-year-old grandson, Christoph, climate change poses a more profound threat.
introduce me to their cattle—Hermann, Kathi,
Gitta, and Lilly—as the four munch fragrant ONE OR TWO DEGREE S of warming may not sound
hay on some of the Alps’ most expensive real like much, but it can determine whether pre-
estate. The family would never think of getting cipitation falls as snow—or rain. Turn up the
rid of them. “It’s heritage and duty,” Wolf says. temperature just a notch, and snowflakes might
never form. That’s why the Alps are in deep trou-
Yet Alpine farming is no longer enough to ble, says Yves Lejeune, the scientist in charge
make a living. “Without winter, these valleys of the Col de Porte meteorological observatory,
would be completely abandoned and empty,” at 4,350 feet in the western French Alps.
says Hannes Wolf. In 2020, Ischgl got a horrifying

S AV I N G W I N T E R 69

Desperation at the top 13,000 feetELEVATION
Under a worst-case climate 6,500
change scenario, it could
be ski areas at the highest Slovenia 0 Dinaric Alps
elevations that have the LiSecwihGttzeeArenruslmstataerniniyand
greatest demand for snow SLOVENIA Trieste Adriatic
production. Lower areas may Italy Tagliamento S e a Venice
be too warm for any snow France Triglav
at all—natural or artificial. 9,396 ft Cortina ave Bre
2,864 m 6,562 ft
Change in demand 2,000 m
for artificial snow*
2041-2060

Ljubljana

-40% -5 40 Drava Sava Padua
Ad
Pi
ur nta ig
GrazM Klagenfurt Drau Rhine Lake G
Lake Wörth
Nassfeld AUSITTARILAY
Bad Kleinkirchheim Lienz
Leoben Grossglockner Trento Madonna
Mur 6,562 ft 12,461 ft Niedernsill Ortles di Campiglio
Semmering 2,000 m 3,798 m Adige 12,812 ft
Bolzano 3,905 m
Pasterze
Glacier

Enns Dachstein Schladming
9,826 ft alzach
2,995 m

Kitzsteinhorn AUSITTARLIYA Bormio Morteratsch
Sölden Glacier
AUSTRIA Tauplitz D
er
Ybbs l z ach Saalbach
Hinterglemm
A
Danube Enns Lake Salzburg Kitzbühel 6,562 ft Innsbruck Ischgl SWAITUZS.T. Davos Kloster
Traun SSa lz 2,000 m Zugspitze St. Anton Chur
Traun
Lake Att Inn 9,718 ft
Linz 2,962 m
Inn AUSTRIA
GERMANY

Major winter resort Lake Garmisch-
Chiem Partenkirchen
Hydroelectric facilities
Generating plant, Inn GERMANY
100 megawatts or more
Large dam Damüls LIECHTENSTEIN

Change in snow-cover duration Isar Lake StarnbergLake Lech Dornbirn
2000-2021 MUNICH Ammer
N I
Increasing St. Gallen

Unchanged SCALE VARIES IN THIS PERSPECTIVE. R
Decreasing THE ALPS SPAN NEARLY 750 MILES Th
ACROSS CENTRAL EUROPE.
L. CONSTANCE
Snow Friedrichshafen ur
Konstanz hine
PRESERVING THE SNOW ller

Public and private groups are working to lessen the impact of shrinking snow- Water
fall. But current methods to create and preserve snow can cost millions of
dollars, consume water and energy resources, and work only on a small scale.

Air

Machine-made snow Snow Getting off the grid
Typical electric-powered cannon Swiss engineers are innovating
snow machines, invented a system of cables that uses
in the 1950s, spray water. A Buried electric water from melting glaciers
fan diffuses the water into and water lines to make snow. Water pressure
tinier droplets that can make would be created by gravity
snow—if the air is cold and and could work without elec-
dry enough. tricity in remote areas.

*COMPARED WITH 1986-2005

ALPINE MELT EUROPE

Direction of view

View
area

Snow cover and glaciers in most of the Alps have declined dramatically AFRICA
over the past 20 years, particularly at elevations below 6,500 feet.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
The loss is already hurting tourism and eventually may disrupt hydropower—
the predominant source of energy in the Alps.

Verona I TA LY Po 6,562 ft MONACO Nice Verdon
e 2,000 m Var
Garda Brescia Add Lake of
Lake Iseo Cuneo Monte Viso Isola 2000 Sainte-Croix
MILAN 12,602 ft
Bergamoomo Tanaro 3,841 m 6,562 ft
a 2,000 m
Po Sestriere ITALY Lake
FRAN C E Serre-Ponçon
Val d’Isère
Vars Durance

Piz Bernina Ticino Sesia Dora Baltea TURIN Barre des Écrins Gap
13,283 ft Gran Paradiso 13,458 ft
4,049 m 4,102 m
13,323 ft
4,061 m Briançon

Diavolezza LITaAkLeYC Lake re Dufourspitze Biella
LLuagakne oMaggio 15,203 ft Matterhorn
Lake Sils Lugano 4,634 m 14,692 ft
St. Moritz SWITZERLABNelDlinzona 4,478 m
Drac
Gorner Glacier Alpe d’Huez
Arve
rs Aosta Mt. Blanc Courchevel
Laax Courmayeur
Zermatt 15,774 ft
4,808 m La Plagne

Andermatt Aletsch Mer de Chamonix Albertville 6,562 ft Grenoble
Glacier Glace 2,000 m
Rhône Verbier Megève Col de Porte
Glacier Eiger Isère meteorological and
13,015 ft Sion La Clusaz Chambéry snow observatory
Engelberg 3,967 m
Bernese Alps Lake FRANCE
Lake Lucerne Grindelwald Bourget
Interlaken
Reuss 6,562 ft SWFITRAN Morzine Lake A Annecy
Aare 2,000 m Abondance

eGstaad
Rhône
Z.
CE
nnecy

N
S

ne
Lake Lake Lucerne Lake LAKE GENEVA Geneva Rhône
Thun
Zug Lausanne
Bern
SWITZERLAND JURA
Zürich Lake
Biel LYON
Saan I Ain
Lake Neuchâtel Saô
ZÜRICH T A
MOUN
t Limma Aare

Bourg-en-Bresse

Glacier Gravity feeds Protecting natural snow Snow blankets MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK AND
Glacial lake water to cables Fabric panels can be MANUEL CANALES, NGM STAFF.
stitched together and laid ALEXANDER STEGMAIER; ERIC KNIGHT;
Snow cables out to reflect the sun and MATTHEW TWOMBLY
prevent snow and glaciers
from melting. But they’re SOURCES: CLAUDIA NOTARNICOLA,
complicated to install and EURAC RESEARCH; RAPHAËLLE SAMA-
can freeze into the ice. COÏTS, HUGUES FRANÇOIS, SAMUEL
MORIN, MÉTÉO-FRANCE/CNRS/INRAE;
COPERNICUS CORINE LAND COVER;
COPERNICUS CLIMATE CHANGE
SERVICE; GRWL DATABASE; EUROPEAN
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY; GLOBAL
POWER PLANT DATABASE; GLOBAL
ENERGY OBSERVATORY; GRAND DATA-
BASE; NASA/JPL; MORTALIVE

WA RMI N G TRACKING A CHANGIN
GLOBE,
WA NI N G Snow-cover data from satellites are helping scientists record
WINTER 2000. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s mountain ranges are
decline in snow-covered area and fewer days of snow on the
BY MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, MANUEL CANALES,
AND ALEXANDER STEGMAIER Change in snow cover A N
2000-2021 A
SNOWFALL IS DECREASING IN MOUNTAIN RANGES I N Zagros Mt
AROUND THE WORLD, DRASTICALLY IN SOME REGIONS. More D Elburz Mt
VITAL TO ECOSYSTEMS AND ECONOMIES, SNOW AND Unchanged I N
E RU
ICE LEVELS AFFECT TOURISM, HYDROPOWER Less C
PRODUCTION, AND WATER SUPPLIES IN MANY PARTS OF O Sea
THE WORLD. SCIENTISTS ARE TRACKING THE CHANGES, SCALE VARIES IN THIS PERSPECTIVE. A a n
b i Hindu Kush
AND INNOVATORS ARE SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS. a
r

K2
28,251 ft
8,611 m

Mt. Everest LAYA Altun Sha n Ku nlun Mts.N Tarbagatay Mts.
29,032 ft I M A TIBET TIA SHAN
8,849 m C
OF Altay Mountains
PLATEAU H ountains
IBSayan M
MONGOLIA
Stanovoy RangeA
a.
I Ya bl onovyy R
Borshchovochnyy
S A
A EA Mountains F

N
SA

IA
Beijing I Dzhugdzh
H
CS

U
R

N. CH I N
KOR
Sikhote Alin Ra.
East China Sea rea
Sakhalin

o Sea of Japan Sea of O
K
Kuril Island
(East Sea)

Rising Japanese Alps Hokkaido
humidity Ho n s hu
levels

Coastal Mt. Fuji Tokyo
proximity 12,388 ft

Increasing air 3,776 m
temperature

Snowfall varies by region and is influenced by factors such as COUNTING THE SNOW DAYS First snow day
latitude, elevation, humidity, and proximity to oceans or lakes. Rising A -3 Brooks Range U.
In many mountain ranges the first snow is
air temperatures boost humidity levels, and winter precipitation arriving later in the year and the last snow B +1 Sk
increasingly falls as rain instead of snow. Low-elevation and coastal earlier. The ranges at right have shown some C +8 Tarbagata
of the largest changes in the last snow day
areas are especially at risk of reduced snowfall. over the past 21 years.

Day lost Day gained

ERIC KNIGHT; MATTHEW TWOMBLY. SOURCES: CLAUDIA NOTARNICOLA, EURAC RESEARCH; OCT
NASA/JPL; NOAA; NATIONAL SNOW AND ICE DATA CENTER

G WINTER 90% radiation Albedo feedback
reflected When snow or sea ice

d a worrying trend since recedes earlier, it exposes
e seeing both a significant
e ground. 10% 30% dark surfaces—bare
ground or sea—that absorb

more sunlight. Warmed

AFRICA 70% absorbed surfaces then re-radiate
heat, increasing air

El’brus Mediterranean Sea ATLA temperature and further
18,510 ft reducing snowfall.
5,642 m
ts. ALPS N T SOUTH

ts. Caucasus Mts. Carpathian U R O P E March sea ice extent I
C
Mts. E 1981–2010 median

Moscow Iceland March sea ice extent O AM ANDES
2021 C ER
E IC
A A
avia Caribbean
Ural Mountains BarSeneats Scandin a nd Labrador A Sea
I l Baf Sea
S e n N
S e Baffin I.
r
Ka G arry Is. Ba New York
y
ra Sea f in Appalachian Mts.
H
SE North QueIesnlanEdliszab IE L DHudson Bay
Pole
eth Chicago IC
O CAERACNT I C A
Ve Victoria I. S Gulf
Cherskiy Ran ast Siberian Sea
P CANADIAN U of M
aptev Sea exico
Range NI R
ge E
rkhoyansk L TED STATE AM
CANADA
E Beaufort Sea M OUNTAINS Mt. Elbert
A 14,440 ft
Mackenzie Mountains N O RTH S 4,401 m
Brooks Ran
CA ROCK Y
N
R ALASK ge U.S. A D

A MSktes.enBa

hur Ra. I RANGE Simpson Park
A A Mts.

Kolyma Range COAST Cascade Range White Pine Range

Koryak Ra. M O U N TA I N S ED Mt. Whitney

Denali 14,505 ft Gulf of California
(Mt. McKinley) 4,421 m
20,310 ft ska C

6,190 m Mt. Rainier O A
Gulf of 14,410 ft
Ala 4,392 m S Sierra Nevada
sk T
insula
utian Range More snow in eastern Siberia R ANG E S Los
Angeles
Okhot Pen Bering Sea Global warming is adding moisture

ds Kamchatka to the air—delivering more snow in

Klyuchevskaya Ale some cold areas. The extra snow cover
15,597 ft is disrupting permafrost by trapping
4,754 m
summer heat in the ground.
Aleutia
P Island n N
s
A
A E
C
C O
I
FIC

.S., CANADA Last snow day Shorter season
-12 Shrinking snow seasons
keena Mountains CANADA can disrupt agricultural
-14 production, lengthen wildfire
ay Mts. KAZAKHSTAN, CHINA -7 seasons, and compound the
-22 risk of flooding.
D -9 White Pine Range U.S. -21
JULY
E -1 Simpson Park Mountains U.S. -25 Borshchovochnyy Mts. RUSSIA

F -2

JAN

Sun-blocking plastic
fabric drapes the tip
of the Rhône Glacier
in Switzerland. A cave
dug each summer in
the shifting ice has
attracted tourists since
1870. For now, the year-
round, 12-acre cover
preserves enough ice
to house the cave.

76 N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

S AV I N G W I N T E R 77

ONE OR TWO DEGREES OF WARMING CAN
MEAN THAT SNOWFLAKES NEVER FORM.
THAT’S WHY THE ALPS ARE IN DEEP TROUBLE.

On his way to work, Lejeune passes Le Sappey- happened over centuries, each fresh layer of
en-Chartreuse, a small village with a church at snow pressing on the ones beneath, until the
its center and ski runs up the mountainsides. At snow solidified into ice and began to flow down-
age five, he learned to ski here. But the village hill under its own weight. Snow accumulates
lies low, at about 3,300 feet. “Now, it’s finished,” in winter, and snow and ice melt in summer,
Lejeune says bluntly. “Maybe they’ll have one or mostly at lower altitudes. When winter gain
two good years, but not more.” exceeds summer loss, the glacier’s snout
advances down into the valley; when summer
Such areas already were plagued by a series triumphs, the glacier retreats. Since the late
of snow-scarce winters in the 1980s and ’90s. 19th century, glaciers in the Alps have retreated
Machines that make snow became the Alps’ first almost continuously.
line of defense. In lower-lying regions, millions
in investments seemed justified to guarantee a Swiss glaciologist Felix Keller has an idea for
steady tourism season. Winters with light snow reversing that trend. Keller grew up in a village
were assumed to be outliers then. next to St. Moritz, the birthplace of winter tour-
ism in the Alps. When I met him there last year,
Lejeune’s data prove that they weren’t. He he took me to the nearby Hotel Morteratsch,
points to a graph comparing the snow depth at where he showed me a black-and-white pho-
Col de Porte in the past 30-year period with the tograph of the last crown prince of Germany,
previous one. The line plunges downward, show- Wilhelm, taken in 1919. The prince and his
ing an average snow-cover decrease of 15 inches. entourage stood beaming on the Morteratsch
“That’s a lot,” Lejeune says. “That’s really a lot.”  Glacier, which at the time was right outside the
hotel. Thick ice covered the entire valley. 
The warming now has reached higher eleva-
tions. “If someone had told me back then that Keller and I went to the same spot. In the cen-
we’d ever need snow machines, I’d have said, tury since Wilhelm’s visit, larches and pines have
‘You’re crazy,’ ” says Peter Leo, Kitzsteinhorn’s taken over; in late summer, locals forage there
head of snow management. Today “we couldn’t for mushrooms and cranberries. The Morte-
live without these machines.” ratsch Glacier has retreated out of sight, more
than a mile up the valley.
Neither can most of the Alps’ 1,100 ski lift
operators. Much of the snow in ski areas is now Alpine glaciers overall have lost two-thirds
human made. On Kitzsteinhorn alone, 104 of their volume since 1850, and the loss is accel-
grass-colored “snow cannons” are strategically erating. “If we don’t act, all will be gone,” says
positioned around the slopes. Each weighs and Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich. By
costs as much as a small car.  “act,” Huss means drastically cut the carbon
emissions that cause global warming.
When Leo turns one on, it becomes hard to
hear him. On the machine’s outer ring, nozzles Keller has an additional action in mind. The
infuse water droplets with air, and a massive idea came to him on a balmy summer day in
fan—“strong enough to suck you in,” he yells— 2015, while he was fishing in a lake fed by melt-
blows them into the sky. As they descend, water water from the Morteratsch. Glacial silt clouded
droplets from the inner rings clump around the the water, and the trout weren’t biting. That’s
initial crystals, forming snowflakes. when it occurred to Keller: Couldn’t some of that
meltwater be kept high in the mountains and
STA N D I N G O N A G L AC I E R like Kitzsteinhorn, turned back into ice? 
it’s hard to grasp how tiny snowflakes could
have formed such an immense mass of ice. It “I figured that within 10 minutes, I’d find out

78 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

why that can’t work,” he says. “But I didn’t.” When the first snowflakes landed on his head,
His friend and fellow glaciologist Hans Oerle- Keller had tears in his eyes. 

mans, who has studied the Morteratsch since Just getting to the point where a prototype
1994, added a crucial twist: The meltwater could be tested required four million dollars
should be converted into fresh snow, which from the Swiss government, a bank, and three
reflects 99 percent of sunlight and could shield foundations. The full-scale system would cost
the ice in summer. Oerlemans calculated that $170 million to install, Keller says. To build
covering just 10 percent of the glacier, in the it, he’d need to get a permit to dig a tunnel
zone where most ice loss occurs, would allow through a protected area. It would take about
it to begin advancing again after 10 years. He a decade until the first snow could be sprayed
and Keller felt giddy at the simplicity of the idea. onto the Morteratsch. By then, the glacier will
have retreated another few hundred yards.
A few high-altitude ski areas already are insu-
lating patches of glaciers by spreading fabric Huss, for one, is convinced the snow cables
on them. And at a few, such as Kitzsteinhorn or will never be deployed—because, he says, there
Diavolezza, near the Morteratsch, snowmaking would be little gained from the great expense.
machines have caused a localized thickening of Even under a moderately optimistic climate sce-
the ice. But neither of those approaches could nario, Huss says, his simulations show that the
be scaled up enough to save an entire glacier. Morteratsch Glacier will all but vanish before the
To save the Morteratsch, Keller and Oerle- end of the century—with or without MortAlive. 
mans estimate, they’d need to cover about 200
acres of it with more than 30 feet of snow every Keller points out that such simulations are
year—more than two and a half million tons of notoriously imprecise. But he knows the glacier
the stuff. Making that much snow with typical is running out of time.
snow machines would use way too much energy.
“If on my deathbed I can tell my children and
For “MortAlive,” as he and Oerlemans call grandchildren that I at least tried to do some-
their project, Keller asked for help from research- thing clever,” he says, “that will be better than
ers at Swiss universities, from a leading cable saying I just talked about all the problems.”
car company, and from Bächler Top Track AG,
a snowmaking company. The team devised a I N M O ST O F T H E A L P S , ice and snow seem
scheme in which seven hoselike snow cables, doomed. That may spell trouble downstream.
each more than half a mile long, would be sus- Europe’s mightiest rivers—the Rhône, Rhine,
pended between two moraines that flank the Danube, and Po—all derive a substantial portion
Morteratsch Glacier. Water from a meltwater of their flow during dry summers from glacial
lake at higher altitude—expected to form soon meltwater. Seasonal shipping and irrigation
at a neighboring glacier—would flow downhill could become a problem. The Alps, however,
through the cables, spray out through nozzles will continue to be Europe’s “water towers”—
patented by Bächler, and fall as snow on the clouds will continue to burst and empty on their
Morteratsch. No electricity would be required. flanks—and rich countries likely will find ways
to safeguard their water supplies.
In a parking lot near the glacier, I watched
the first trial of a prototype. The team had sus- The loss of winter tourism may prove trick-
pended a single snow cable with six nozzles ier. Entire communities are now grappling
between two poles. At one point a pipe froze with their very existence being dependent on
and had to be replaced—but the system worked. a phenomenon so fleeting it melts at the touch
of your hand. Many are investing more heavily

ALPINE GLACIERS OVERALL HAVE LOST
TWO-THIRDS OF THEIR VOLUME SINCE 1850,

AND THE LOSS IS ACCELERATING.

S AV I N G W I N T E R 79

The joy of hurtling
down a snow-covered
mountainside on skis
is what draws millions
of tourists to the Alps
each winter—but a few
visitors prefer to go
up, not down, and to
do it the hard way. An
ice climber grapples
with a frozen waterfall
in the gorge at Pon-
tresina, Switzerland.

80 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

S AV I N G W I N T E R 81

Geographer Damien
Filip paddles on the
Totensee, a small Swiss
lake used for hydro-
power, as the ice
breaks up in late June.
In coming decades,
the loss of snow and ice
in the Alps may reduce
the summer flow in
major rivers such as the
Rhône and Rhine.

82 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

S AV I N G W I N T E R 83

in summer—in mountain biking or hiking trails, Cold, snowy winters
summer tobogganing or climbing spaces. Kitz- are a defining element
steinhorn is seeing an influx of summer tourists of Alpine lifestyle,
from scorched countries such as Saudi Arabia.  folklore, and tradi-
But summer tourism has always existed in the tions. Gian-Nicola Bass,
Alps, and expanding it enough to make up for who preserves some
the loss of skiing will be hard. of these ways at the
Upper Engadin Cultural
The French village of Abondance, altitude Archives in Switzerland,
3,000 feet, is in the middle of this difficult tran- believes that soaking
sition. When its lifts shut down in 2007, it was in ice-covered Lake
described in one news story after another as the Sils helps toughen his
first ski village to fall victim to climate change. immune system.
But its 1,400 residents weren’t ready to bid adieu
to skiing. In 2008 they voted in a new mayor, N O M I RAC L E will save winter in the Alps. Making
Paul Girard-Despraulex, who fulfilled his sole snow, stockpiling it, spraying it on glaciers—all
campaign promise and reopened the lifts.  that will, at best, buy time in a few places.

Born into a family of farmers the year the The beauty of the Alps, the envy of outsiders
cable car was built, Girard-Despraulex had seen long before people here built their lives around
his village prosper with skiing. Yet when an snowy winters, will remain. But the waning
investor approached him with a plan to double of snow and ice represents an emotional loss,
down—to develop Abondance into a massive ski a loss of culture and identity, as well as an eco-
resort by connecting it with a neighboring one— nomic one. When Switzerland’s Pizol Glacier
the mayor was flabbergasted. The plan would shrank to such a tiny sheet of ice that it was
have entailed blowing up part of a mountain and taken off the glacier monitoring service, locals
destroying an old fir forest. “That’s something mourned its death with a funeral. 
we did not want to do,” Girard-Despraulex says. 
When I was little, skiing was a pastime
Elsewhere in the Alps, too, plans for expand- enjoyed by the vast majority of people in the
ing winter tourism have met resistance. In Alps, no matter their status or income. Like me,
Austria, 160,000 people signed a petition to
stop plans to connect the Ötztal and Pitztal ski
areas, again by blowing up part of a mountain. In
Morzine, France, near Abondance, a new cable
car project was halted after locals protested. An
independent analysis had shown that it might
not pay off in an increasingly snowless climate.

In Abondance, Girard-Despraulex is pushing
diversification. Aside from its stunningly beau-
tiful ski area, it now boasts ice-skating on a natu-
ral lake and sleigh rides in winter, as well as more
mountain biking and hiking in summer. There’s
a museum dedicated to Abondance cheese—
dairy farming remains important around the
village. Recently, Girard-Despraulex had the roof
reslated on an abandoned, 900-year-old abbey,
so it could safely open to visitors. 

“We have not yet exactly found the right
approach, the right ideas, but we are thinking,
testing, and experimenting,” he says. In the
abbey’s courtyard, he points to a mural depict-
ing the wedding at Cana, where Jesus is said
to have turned water into wine. An upcoming
restoration, the mayor says, will make the faded
colors shine again.

84 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

my childhood friend Dominik and his partner, never even wondered if Unterberg would have
Julia, were pushed onto the slopes at a very enough snow to open,” she says, as we trudge past
early age. Less than three decades on, their son, the idle T-bar lifts. When those lifts were about
Johann, who just turned four and is my godson, to close for good in 2014, locals crowdfunded
is fascinated by snow. But he knows it largely almost $83,000 to keep them going. But at this
from songs and books. altitude it’s too warm to invest in snowmaking.
So Unterberg relies solely on natural snow, pro-
On a sunny Sunday last February, we drive up moting itself as a ski area where “the snow still
Unterberg mountain near Vienna, in the east- falls from the sky.” Last winter, that made for 10
ernmost Alps, in search of the real stuff. Just days of skiing. The winter before, zero. j
underneath the 4,400-foot peak, we find a little
winter. “It sparkles!” Johann yells, tossing him- After reporting for years in Asia, Austrian writer
self in the snow and gingerly licking it from his Denise Hruby has returned home to focus on
mitten. He wants to build a snowman, but the environmental challenges in Europe. Ciril Jazbec,
snow is less than an inch deep.  a Slovenian, photographed India’s ice stupas—
small, artificial glaciers—for the July 2020 issue.
His mother, Julia, 33, learned to ski here. “We

S AV I N G W I N T E R 85

CAT

86

BIG In Nagarahole
Tiger Reserve, tigers

and leopards are
thriving as India’s
conservation efforts
begin to pay off.

BY
YUDHIJIT
B H AT TAC H A R J E E

PHOTOGRAPHS BY
SHAAZ JUNG

HAVEN



Leopards court in a
flowering coral tree on
a misty winter morning
at Nagarahole Tiger
Reserve. The two are
likely to mate several
times while they are
together, which can
be for up to a week.

PREVIOUS PHOTO

A black panther rests
on a branch of a teak
tree. Black panthers
are leopards with a
genetic mutation that
causes the dark pig-
mentation of their
coats. The rosette pat-
terns are still visible
against their fur.



When the waters of
the Kabini River recede
during the summer
months, the surround-
ing area transforms
into a grassland where
spotted deer and other
animals come to graze.
The landscape offers
an abundance of prey
for big cats.

DRAPED IN MIST,
THE LUSH,
FORESTED

LANDSCAPE OF
NAGARAHOLE
TIGER RESERVE

IN INDIA’S
SOUTHWESTERN

KARNATAKA
STATE LOOKS
ENCHANTED.

An elephant lumbers through the foliage, feeding on shrubs A tiger drinks from
and leaves, its gigantic ears flapping as if to the beat of a met- one of Nagara-
ronome. Up ahead along the dirt road, bison-like gaur graze hole’s water holes.
in a meadow, not so much as glancing in our direction. Across the reserve,
park authorities
Guided by photographer Shaaz Jung, who has lived in a have installed solar-
lodge in the forest for the past 12 years, we drive on, stopping powered bore wells,
by a herd of spotted deer. An iridescent blue kingfisher flits which are activated
between the trees. As sunlight cuts through the haze, the when the water level
tranquility is broken by the bark of a deer ringing out in the drops, helping keep
distance. It’s an alarm, warning that a predator lurks nearby. these essential water
sources full through-
Calls like this are heard here with increasing frequency. out the year.
Nagarahole abounds with Bengal tigers and Indian leopards.
Tourists flock to the reserve to catch a glimpse of these big
cats, including an especially bold black panther—a leopard
with a mutation that causes dark pigmentation. That cat,
often sighted, has become something of a star.

“Usually when you go on a safari, it’s like, Did you see a
tiger?” says Krithi Karanth, a scientist at the Centre for Wildlife
Studies in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore). “Now it’s like, Oh,
you saw a tiger. Great, but did you see the black panther?”

92 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C



NAGARAHOLE IS THE PERFECT PLACE
FOR TIGERS AND LEOPARDS TO COEXIST:
TIGERS PROWLING IN THE UNDERGROWTH,

LEOPARDS LOUNGING IN TREES.

Less than a 10th of the 327-square-mile park says, now are better trained and better equipped
is open to visitors. At the southern end of this because of increased government funding that
tourism zone lies the Kabini River, fringed with followed India’s commitment in 2010 to an inter-
brush and tall grasses. Beyond are meadows and national plan to double the number of tigers
streams and dense woods. It’s the perfect milieu worldwide. “That’s been the biggest deterrent
for tigers and leopards to coexist: tigers prowling for anybody looking to enter the forest to poach
in the undergrowth; leopards lounging in trees, for meat or even to collect firewood,” he says. “All
safe from tigers. such incursions stopped.”

The likelihood of seeing these big cats has As a result, the density of prey species such
gone up significantly during the past decade in as deer and wild boar has gone up, helping their
Nagarahole and many other wildlife reserves predators—tigers and leopards—to thrive. At
across India, thanks to the success of conserva- Nagarahole the big cats also appear to have ben-
tion efforts. The latest count of tigers at Nagara- efited from 26 solar-powered bore wells installed
hole was 135, more than twice the number from next to ponds, keeping them full even in the
a decade ago. The country now has almost 3,000 dry months.
tigers in the wild, according to the latest official
census, completed in 2018. That’s 33 percent The future of big cats in Nagarahole and
higher than in 2014. The number of leopards has similar reserves hinges in part on minimizing
increased 62 percent since 2014, to nearly 13,000. conflict between the animals and neighboring
communities. In one village I visited just outside
One sign of this growing population is more the park boundary, I watched kids rolling rubber
sightings of big cats beyond the edges of tires along a mud track as the sun was setting
reserves, which also has increased the poten- over the Kabini. A cart trundled by, pulled by a
tial for conflict with humans. “I have tigers pair of oxen, their bells jangling.
living around my house in central India,” says
conservationist Belinda Wright, founder of the As the competition for territory inside India’s
Wildlife Protection Society of India, who lives reserves intensifies, tigers and leopards are wan-
on the edge of Kanha Tiger Reserve in the state dering into such villages more often, killing cattle
of Madhya Pradesh. and sometimes humans. In Karnataka alone,
at least nine people were killed by tigers from
The rising numbers are particularly encourag- 2019 to 2021.
ing to conservationists because tiger and leopard
counts are now more credible. Until 2006, India’s Even though revenue from big cat tourism has
tiger census, conducted every four years, was been growing, Wright says, the money hasn’t
more of a guesstimate based on a survey of paw helped local residents. “So they don’t feel they
prints—a lengthy and tedious exercise carried out benefit from the presence of tigers,” she adds.
by teams covering tens of thousands of square Wildlife authorities do compensate people who
miles. The bulk of the counting is now done using lose cattle to tigers and have moved some vil-
images from camera traps that enable the identi- lages away from tiger terrain, but they still need
fication of individual tigers and leopards by their to do more to give surrounding communities
unique patterns of stripes or spots. a stake in the success of the reserves, conser-
vationists say, or the gains made over the past
Vijay Mohan Raj, chief conservator of forests decade could disappear. j
in Karnataka, credits the success at Nagara-
hole and other reserves to more effective anti- Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a contributing writer
poaching personnel strategically stationed for National Geographic. Shaaz Jung has spent
inside the reserves. These frontline workers, Raj hundreds of hours documenting the lives of big
cats after becoming fascinated with leopards.

RILEY D. CHAMPINE AND TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: WILDLIFE INSTITUTE OF INDIA; NATIONAL TIGER CONSERVATION AUTHORITY;
WWF; IUCN; WORLDPOP; FOREST LANDSCAPE INTEGRITY INDEX; WDPA; PANTHERA; © OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS

AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN M A NETWORK OF RESERVES
Protected areas where big cat populations are increasing have
I high densities of prey and robust measures against poaching.
H Connections between reserves via stretches of forest are critical,
but they aren’t safeguarded against human encroachment.

Tiger population in reserve Human population

Corbett National Park, one At or near capacity (18 reserves) Forest

of India’s first tiger reserves, Below capacity (29)
No tigers observed (4)
Ahas 231 tigers according to 200 mi
200 km
its latest census, in 2018.
LThis is the most of any single

protected area in the world.
Rajaji SHI
Corbett
A Y ADESERT V CHINA

R A L
Delhi Royal
Pilibhit I K Kamlang
Sariska Manas Namdapha
H I
L NEPAL N. P.
L S Chitwan Pakke
THA Dudhwa BHUTAN

EASTERJaipurLucknow National Park Nameri
Valmiki
GANGETIC PLAIN Buxa Kaziranga
Manas Orang
I N D I ARanthambhore
BANGLADESH
Mukundara
Panna

Poachers killed all tigers in the Sanjay-Dubri Dampa
Sariska Tiger Reserve in 2004 Palamau
Bandhavgarh

and the Panna Tiger Reserve Satpura Kanha Kolkata
in 2009. The reserves now have
36 tigers between them after Pench (2 reserves) Achanakmar Similipal Sundarbans
successful reintroductions. Reserved Forest

Nagpur Nawegaon- Sundarban MYANMAR
Nagzira
Melghat Satkosia
Bor

Tadoba Udanti- ATS The 200 tigers that dwell in
Kawal Sitanadi H the Sundarban Tiger Reserve
G have adapted to living in the
Mumbai DECCAN mangrove forest and are known
Pune PLATEAU Indravati N

Sahyadri Hyderabad to cross into the adjacent
protected area in Bangladesh.

Amrabad

NagarjunasagarWESTERN Protecting Big Cats
Kali Srisailam
In the early 1970s India’s national animal—the
Bhadra Bengal tiger—faced extinction. The government
responded in 1973 by designating nine tiger
Bengaluru reserves. Today 51 reserves host about 2,000
Chennai tigers, two-thirds of the country’s rebounding
GHATS tiger population. Thousands of Indian leopards
Nagarahole Biligiriranganatha also live in these protected areas. Both types of
Bandipur Swamy Temple big cats had seen large declines in their ranges
Mudumalai and populations in the past few centuries.
Sathyamangalam
Nagarahole Tiger Reserve Parambikulam
and its adjacent reserves
have a combined count of Anamalai
724 individuals—globally Srivilliputhur
the largest known tiger Megamalai*
population in one region.
Periyar

Kalakad- SRI
Mundanthurai LANKA

Tiger Leopard EUROPE ASIA
Panthera tigris Panthera pardus

WHERE THE BIG CATS MEET Tiger range AFRICA
India has 60 percent of the world’s roughly Current
5,000 wild tigers and the most remaining Historic INDIA
leopard territory in one country. The
reserves are havens for both, although Leopard range Countrywide
tigers sometimes kill or displace leopards. Current estimates, 2018†
Both species’ long-term survival in the Historic Tigers: 2,967
wild is threatened by geographic isolation, Leopards: 12,852
which reduces genetic diversity. Overlapping range
†INCLUDES BIG CATS
*SRIVILLIPUTHUR MEGAMALAI TIGER RESERVE, DESIGNATED IN 2021, OUTSIDE TIGER RESERVES
HAS NOT YET BEEN EVALUATED FOR TIGER CAPACITY.



A leopard and a black fight. Leopards tend
panther keep a wary to spend the daytime
eye out for trouble. resting high off the
Being able to climb ground on branches.
trees is a superpower They clamber down in
that helps leopards the evenings to hunt.
avoid confrontations Leopards can haul
with tigers, which kills into trees to keep
would prevail in a them from scavengers.

B I G C AT H AV E N 97

A black panther heads
toward a thicket with
a just captured fawn.
As Nagarahole has
improved anti-poaching
measures, herbivores
such as spotted deer
have become plentiful.
With the rise in prey
population, big cats
have thrived.



100

Since 2016,
1,280
community
leaders in
Colombia
have been
killed after
resisting
intrusions by
developers
and drug
cartels.

Defending
the

Land,
Paying
With
Their
Lives

BY
JORDAN
SALAMA

PHOTOGRAPHS BY
FLORENCE
GOUPIL

Indigenous
leaders,
teachers,

farmers, and
others have
been targeted
after speaking
up against
damage to
their lands
and culture.

Fanor Mulcué, an
Indigenous Nasa leader

in southern Colombia,
contemplates an

Espeletia plant native
to the Andean plateau.

Key to the creation
of freshwater reserves
in the highlands, many
species are endangered
because of encroaching
mining and agricultural

activities.

PREVIOUS PHOTO

Ati Quigua performs a
ritual to protect a river
in the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta mountains
in northern Colombia’s
Cesar Department. An

Indigenous Arhuaco
environmentalist and

politician, she has
protested mining and
large-scale development
that threaten natural
resources in the Sierra

Nevada, a UNESCO
biosphere reserve.



L U I S M A N U E L SA L A M A N C A balanced on
the tailgate of a rickety covered pickup
truck, clinging onto the roof rack as it

careened down the winding backroads

of the Andes. It was dawn on May 22,

2018, and the Nudo de Almaguer—a

fertile knot of dome-shaped mountains in

southwestern Colombia known in English as

the Colombian Massif—was beginning to stir.

As the fog lifted, a woman milking a bloated

brown cow came into sight in a clearing. Red-

and-white buses crammed with schoolchildren

fought for passage with horse-drawn carts and

cargo mules on narrow roads. More than 650 feet

below, the Magdalena River rushed through a

steep, emerald gorge fed by waterfalls tumbling

down from every direction. Alexandra Isabel Sala-
manca holds a photo
We were heading toward Quinchana—a village of her father, Luis
Manuel Salamanca,
of some 90 families hidden in the misty, verdant as a young man. A
famed anthropologist
hills of Huila Department, a region known for and conservationist
in southwestern Huila,
coffee growing and oil exploration and home he was murdered on
May 11, 2019. “My
to the headwaters of several major rivers. Quin- father was shot on the
other side of this win-
chana is also the trailhead to a small community dow,” said Alexandra
Isabel. No arrests have
called La Gaitana and an archaeological site of been made.

pre-Columbian artifacts—imposing megalithic

stone deities and tombs that date to the first

through eighth centuries. They were rediscov-

ered in 1942, helping put this region on the map.

Salamanca had dedicated his career to study-

ing and preserving this history. The 64-year-old

was one of Colombia’s most renowned anthropol-

ogists. Soft-spoken and selective with his words,

he had a gentle face, round with a ball-shaped

nose, a countenance that exuded the comfort of

a fuzzy sweater.

104 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

I’d come to see Salamanca during a fraught were left to hang on to the outside. “Better to go
moment of transition for Colombia, a country before it rains,” he repeated quietly to himself.
that had suffered half a century of violent armed
conflict. I was following the course of the Mag- The most famous artifacts in the massif are the
dalena River—the central, storied waterway extraordinary megalithic statues at a UNESCO
that runs for nearly a thousand miles through World Heritage park of well-manicured lawns
the heart of the South American nation—and and gravel trails in nearby San Agustín, the
spending time with people working to support municipal capital. The park boasts large, upright
a fragile peace along its banks. Mid-2018 was a stone slabs carved into humanlike renderings of
time of relative calm. It wouldn’t last. lizards and monkeys that preside over spectacu-
lar views of the surrounding hills.
“Better to go before it rains,” Salamanca told
me, gazing at clouds in the crevasses of the valley Strolling the orderly trails of San Agustín is like
as he gripped the cold metal bars of our truck at visiting a zoo of stones. La Gaitana, in contrast,
every bump in the pavement. The shared cami- Salamanca told me, would be like encountering
oneta was overflowing with passengers by the pre-Columbian relics in the wild. The site is hid-
time we whistled it down, and Salamanca and I den away on a mountainside, the trail obscured by
decades of overgrowth dating to when Quinchana

D E F E N D I N G T H E L A N D 105



Colombia is
one of the
world’s most
biodiverse
countries
and is home to
sacred relics
that mark
the enduring
influence of
pre-Columbian
cultures.

A replica of a pre-
Columbian statue
guards a waterfall in
Cauca, in southwestern
Colombia. Ancient
cultures believed the
first- to eighth-century
megaliths that dot
this landscape pro-
tected rivers and all
living beings.

was off-limits, a gateway to a drug-trafficking implicated, but less than 10 percent of investi-
corridor controlled by guerrillas. gations result in sentences.

For more than half a century, the Marxist- “The way in which these killings of leaders
inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colom- are being carried out, the kinds of leaders being
bia, known as the FARC, were at war with the targeted, the places where it’s happening, it’s
Colombian state. The conflict drew in other left- systematic,” Leonardo González of INDEPAZ
ist militias, right-wing paramilitary groups, drug told me. Systematic and frequent: Colombia was
cartels, and the U.S. military, rendering huge the world’s deadliest country for environmental
swaths of jungle and other remote areas unsafe activists in 2020 for the second year in a row,
for visitors and locals alike. Almost 270,000 peo- according to Global Witness, an environmental
ple died in the conflict, 81,000 disappeared, and and human rights investigative organization
7.4 million were displaced from their homes. based in London. Almost a year to the day after
I met Salamanca, the anthropologist became
A peace deal signed in 2016 was supposed one of those grim casualties. On the night of
to change everything. FARC soldiers agreed to May 11, 2019, he was shot and left for dead in
lay down their weapons, and the government front of his door.
pledged to welcome them back into society. Cru-
cially, the state promised to establish or improve T HE DAY I SPENT with Sala-
public services in rural areas once controlled by manca, our camioneta ride
guerrillas. There was hope that former conflict ended at Quinchana’s town
zones would reopen to visitors, creating more strip; from there our jour-
opportunities for the people who live there.
ney would be on foot. We
But the lure of commercial rewards from
untapped resources has come at a high price. clambered down in front of a
Gold miners, cattle ranchers, and narco traffick-
ers have moved in, and locals who dare to defend modest family home that doubled as a general
their land and culture from development have
become targets. According to the Institute for store. A colorful, quirky array of provisions was
Development and Peace Studies, a Bogotá-based
nonprofit known as INDEPAZ, 1,280 Colombian for sale in the living room: Teddy bears and col-
“social leaders”—many of them Indigenous and
Afro-Colombian land defenders and environ- oring books shared shelves with rubbing alcohol,
mentalists—have been murdered since the
2016 peace agreement. Armed groups vying for canned lentils, and feminine-hygiene products.
control of the resource-rich territory have been
The morning was quiet, but my heart was rac-
The liberation
of land once ing. Not too long before, these FARC-controlled
controlled by
rebels has towns were no-go zones for the uninvited. For-
been a boon
for science and eigners and Colombians, especially wealthy
tourism—but has
led to an assault ones, were kidnapped for ransom. Loggers and
on natural
resources. developers avoided rebel-controlled jungles.

Places like Quinchana—strategically located

near mountain passes long frequented by salt,

leather, and sugar traders in the preindustrial

era—became drug- and weapon-smuggling cor-

ridors that financed the guerrillas.

“The guerrillas controlled everyone’s move-

ments. They decided who to allow in and who

to keep out,” Salamanca recalled.

The liberation of large tracts of Colombian

territory from the FARC has been a boon for sci-

ence and tourism. Colombia is the second most

biodiverse country in the world, home to a kalei-

doscope of ecosystems, landscapes, and species. It

boasts huge expanses of coral reefs, grassland lla-

nos, and buzzing rainforests. In the steaming-hot

central valleys, rivers and wetlands are home to

caimans, vulnerable manatees, and critically

endangered freshwater turtles. On the Pacific

108 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

IN THE CROSSHAIRS COLOMBIA Caribbean Sea
SOUTH
A 2016 peace accord with rebels was meant to AMERICA Sierra Nevada
end bloodshed and open opportunities in former de Santa Marta
conflict zones. But criminals and elites have PA N A M A
exploited resources, hoarded profits, and threat- CESAR
ened community leaders who challenged them.
By mid-December, 1,280 activists had been killed. VENEZUELA

MOST AT RISK: INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OCEAN Medellín E
Killings of activists fell in 2021, partly due to better organi- Magdalena S
zation within civilian defense groups and disarray in cartels CHOCÓ COLOMBIA
and militias. Indigenous activists and Afro-Colombian land
defenders are disproportionately targeted. RISARALDA CUNDINAMARCA

Pereira Bogotá

Number of assassinations* Victims, by social cause† VALLE Ibagué A
DEL CAUCA Cali SaTTnOItEaLREnIRMLdAeQDArEUNdIMTeRBQOOuDilAiMcMhaEoT ARE
Indigenous/Afro-Colombian Farming rights D
Others 418 (33%) CAUCA
HUILA GUAVI
298 279 310 Community leadership Tumaco LA GAITANA uiSnachnaAngaustín
371 (29%) NARIÑO Q
N
Human rights, legal, political
207 164 (13%) Colombian Massif
Total 830
165 ECUADOR

A AMAZON

RAINFOREST

Coca eradication Seventy percent of victims
106 (8%)
21 Total 450 were in rural farming areas BRAZIL
and mountain regions.
2016 ‘17 ‘18 ‘19 ‘20 2021
The killers are often linked PERU
*FROM THE NOV. 24, 2016, PEACE DEAL THROUGH DEC. 19, 2021 to drug cartels trying to Amazon
†THE FOUR SOCIAL CAUSES WITH THE MOST VICTIMS ARE SHOWN. OF control coca cultivation 100 mi
1,280 FATALITIES, 323 WERE ACTIVISTS ON MORE THAN ONE ISSUE.
and trafficking routes. 100 km

coast, thousands of humpback whales make evidence of widespread corruption among
annual migrations to Colombia’s nutrient-rich regional authorities who’ve turned a blind eye
waters, and slender waterfalls pour from volcanic to deforestation, mining, and wildlife traffick-
outcrops onto black-sand beaches. Here, Afro- ing that benefit elites. Politicians at the highest
Colombian and Indigenous Emberá and Wou- levels, including the ruling Centro Democrático
naan people know their way through labyrinths party, have been linked to violent paramilitary
of mangroves and mountains, and are preserving groups that are implicated in many killings. The
traditions rooted in generations of ancestors. paras, as they’re known, arose in the 1970s and
’80s when wealthy landowners, drug traffickers,
Biologists have explored new corners of the and corporate interests funded private armies to
country, discovering unknown species and pro- eliminate leftists.
tecting endangered ones. Annual international
tourist arrivals rose by more than one million The failure of the state to establish a strong
people from 2016 through 2019. presence in former conflict zones has allowed
criminal groups to flourish, fighting over natural
At the same time, the free-for-all passage of resources, smuggling corridors, and ports where
loggers, ranchers, and gold miners has fueled they can move illicit goods.
deforestation, and cultivation of coca—the key
ingredient for cocaine—reached an all-time high Activists are fighting back—and paying with
in 2018, according to the UN Office on Drugs and their lives.
Crime. Large development projects—such as Los
Besotes dam in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Those targeted include Indigenous leaders,
mountains and fracking explorations along the teachers, scientists, conservationists, farmers
Magdalena River—threaten to flood land, con- trying to replace coca with legal crops, femi-
taminate water, and displace communities and nists, and advocates for the 2016 peace accord.
species that depend on both. Juana Perea Plata was the 50-year-old owner of
an ecolodge, who mobilized opposition to an
Authorities have failed to rein in those who industrial port near her home in Chocó Depart-
put profits over protection of resources. There’s ment on the Pacific coast. She was murdered in

CHRISTINE FELLENZ AND MONICA SERRANO, NGM STAFF; ERIKA NUNEZ. SOURCES: INDEPAZ; GREEN MARBLE

Nazaria Calambás
Tunubalá’s family
mourn at her funeral
in Cauca. In October
2021, the 34-year-old
Indigenous Misak, a
former mayor, was
gunned down. Groups
vying for drug routes
and resources have
targeted Indigenous
and Afro-Colombian
women in particular.