2020-09-01 National Geographic UK

they’re basically oversize chick- No doubt they have their rea-
ens in habitats populated by
hungry lions, leopards, hyenas, Ostriches are sons. But from an evolutionary
basically oversize perspective, playing the field is
African wild dogs, and cheetahs. a way to get diverse DNA into as
And while adult ostriches are too chickens in many nests as possible and com-
formidable to be easy prey—their areas populated pensate for the fact that most

kick can break bones, and the by hungry lions, nests fail.
larger of their two claws can dis- leopards, hyenas, Thus at 10:30 one morning we
embowel an adversary—they’re
spot a couple mating about 500

much better at fleeing than fight- and cheetahs. yards off the park’s main road.
ing, with a top escape speed of But their kick They break apart, and as the
more than 40 miles an hour. male walks on, his most recent

What also keeps them alert can break bones, consort and two other females
is the peril facing their off- and they can run follow. One of them soon begins
spring. Ostriches make their soliciting him, holding her wings

nests—just clearings on the faster than away from her body and shaking
ground—in the open, where 40 miles an hour. them like pom-poms. In breeding
their eggs can be smashed to season, females can produce an

bits by any blundering elephant, egg every two days, and the urge

never mind hungry predators. to make the egg fertile is insis-

(Well, mind the predators too.) Success requires tent. But males are often in short supply, per-

improbable luck. The largest bird on Earth, and haps because they jealously guard their territory,

one of the most conspicuous, must keep its nest forcing some to emigrate.

undetected—or stand ready to defend it—for The male ignores her. Their walk takes them

more than two months, from laying the first eggs on a meandering route past tall, spreading acacia

to hatching. Failure is routine, and that is the trees and squat baobabs with fat trunks scarred

driving force behind its ingeniously communal by the endless scraping of elephants. By the

nesting behavior. road, the female tries again, her wings shimmy-

A good place to see ostriches is Tarangire ing. A safari vehicle shoots past, casting a train of

National Park in northern Tanzania. It’s 1,100 dust across her romantic display. The male walks

square miles of dry hills and grassy plains along on. Undaunted, she finds an excuse to walk in

the Tarangire River. The elephants spread out in front of him, wings low and trembling.

great herds here, together with zebras and wilde- “But he isn’t convinced,” Magige says.

beests by the thousands. Ostriches are common The seduction takes more than an hour. They

too, but when I join University of Dar es Salaam find their way down to a sandy beach on the

wildlife ecologist Flora John Magige, an expert Tarangire River. As she walks away, he drops to

on ostrich behavior, on a search for nests, our the ground, finally smitten. Then he executes

first discovery is a bust. the full pre-copulatory display, like a head-

Nine eggs are scattered in the brush over an banging air guitar player: wings spiraling, body

area roughly 75 feet across. Magige surveys the rocking wildly from side to side, head flung back

area like a detective working a murder scene. She so far it bounces off his ribs, ka-thump on one

points out a faint scraping in the dirt where the side, ka-thump on the other.

nest had been, and right next to it the freshly dug She strolls on, indifferent now. Finally,

burrow of an aardvark. Not guilty, she thinks. though, they get together in the dry riverbed.

The scattering is more likely the work of a hun- He writhes over her for a minute or two as she

gry predator, but not a big one, because all the sits sphinxlike, dignified, head straight in the

eggs are still intact. Maybe a jackal then? In any air. At his moment of greatest ecstasy, she spots

case, the male and female ostrich have moved something tasty on the sand and reaches out

on, as they often do when a nest is disturbed. It’s to eat it.

possible that they’ll nest together again. Afterward everyone drinks and feeds for a

But ostriches in breeding season are relent- while along the river, a sort of ostrich picnic.

lessly promiscuous, with both males and We turn to leave for our own lunch, and when

females seeking liaisons with multiple partners. we pause for one last look back, all three females

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

ALGERIA EGYPT ARABIAN
PENINSULA
SAH ARA

MAURITANIA MALI NIGER L SUDAN ERITREA
SENEGAL
S AH E DJIBOUTI
Common ostrich
up to 9 ft BURKINA NIGERIA CHAD HORN OF
FASO AFRICA

CENTRAL SOUTH ETHIOPIAN
AFRICAN SUDAN
REPUBLIC HIGHLANDS
ETHIOPIA

CAMEROON Ostriches are mostly KENYA SOMALIA
found in protected areas.
UGANDA MASAI MARA
NATIONAL
North African ostriches, RESERVE
now rarely found in their TARANGIRE
historic range, have NATIONAL PARK
declined precipitously.

AFRICA

TANZANIA

ANGOLA

ZAMBIA

Male Female Egg NAMIB DESERT ZIMBABWE MOZAMBIQUE MADAGASCAR
OSTRICH EGG, ACTUAL-SIZE
NAMIBIA

Today’s ostrich range is difficult to define as BOTSWANA
populations decrease. In the 1960s one subspecies
of the common ostrich went extinct from hunting KALAHARI
and habitat loss. Now some experts say the Somali DESERT
ostrich’s range has shrunk to just the Horn of Africa.
ESWATINI
Common ostrich (Struthio camelus)
SOUTH 500 mi
North African ostrich (S.c. camelus) AFRICA 500 km

Masai ostrich (S.c. massaicus) Oudtshoorn

South African ostrich (S.c. australis) CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
NATURE RESERVE
Somali ostrich (Struthio molybdophanes)

are approaching the male, their wings held out the distance, he begins walking toward him in
and softly shaking. a determined way, then running. As in humans,
promiscuity and possessiveness can coexist: The
W E H A D F O L LOW E D this group of ostriches in nesting male aims to monopolize his partner’s
the hope that they would lead us to a nest, but matings, and that means running off rival males.
an ostrich nest can be hard to see even when
you know exactly where it is. The male typically What’s more surprising is how the nesting pair
tends it by night, sitting with head up, on the responds to visiting females. Other species have
lookout. The female takes over by day. When evolved elaborate defenses to deter “brood para-
she slants her tail feathers down in back, and sites,” birds that try to fob off the tedious work of
her long neck in front, she can look like nothing parenting by slipping their eggs into other birds’
more than an old termite mound or a tree stump. nests. Ostriches are different. When another
Sometimes the easiest way to find a nest is just to female approaches, the nesting female will often
sit and wait for another ostrich to come visiting, stand up and step aside, allowing the visitor to lay
which happens with surprising frequency. eggs alongside her own. According to some stud-
ies, the nesting female is typically the biological
One afternoon we take up position in a great mother of only about half the 19 or 20 eggs she
open plain and soon find that it’s a thriving can successfully incubate, with minor females
ostrich territory. Somewhere out in front of us contributing the rest. It’s not brood parasitism;
a female is sitting on her nest. The nesting male it’s communal nesting, and like promiscuity, it’s a
is grazing a few hundred yards to the left and way for ostriches to achieve reproductive success
not seeming to pay much attention. But when in a hazardous world.
another male turns up a half mile or more in
That’s not to say all is sisterly love and

CHRISTINA SHINTANI AND TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: IUCN; BRIAN BERTRAM; FLORA JOHN MAGIGE, UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

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

LEFT TO RIGHT,

FROM TOP

It’s ostrich breeding
season in Tarangire
National Park. A male’s
red, swollen neck and
legs announce that he’s
on the hunt for mates.

After performing an
impressive courtship
dance in which he
waves his wings and
flaunts his feathered
finery, the male mounts
a hen. Unlike most
birds, male ostriches
possess a penis
and inseminate
females internally.

The female lays her
eggs on the ground.
Other hens may lay
eggs alongside hers—
a strategy known as
communal nesting—but
only the primary hen
and her mate will guard
and incubate the eggs.

Eggs hatch after 42
days’ incubation, but
only about 10 percent
of nests are successful.
Chicks that survive
strike out on their own
after a year or two.

N O B O DY ’ S F O O L 105

happiness. The nesting female may not have For the male, his philandering in the neigh-
much choice, according to Brian Bertram, the borhood means that he has probably fathered
biologist who provided the first detailed descrip- about one-third of the eggs added to the nest by
tion of communal nesting, in 1979. Resisting a nearby females. For the nesting female, having
visiting female could lead to conflict and attract extra eggs in the nest dilutes the risk. No one
lions and other predators. It could also break knows how she can tell the difference, but she
eggs, mostly her own, and the smell could draw routinely keeps her own eggs in the center of
hyenas or jackals. Besides, the visiting female the nest, and consigns those of other females
typically towers above the resident female. Ber- to what Bertram calls “the doomed outer ring.”
tram observed one nesting female inclined to Having more chicks together after hatching also
stay seated. So the visitor just stood there peck- makes it less likely her chicks will be the ones
ing at her head “fairly gently” but persistently picked off by a predator.
for 20 minutes, until finally the nesting bird
stood up, exasperated, and stepped aside. O N E O F T H E M O S T striking things to me about
ostriches, apart from their size, is the sense that
Communal nesting provides the nesting cou- they are in motion even when standing still.
ple with certain selfish benefits, Bertram says.

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

Spotted hyenas in through a narrow, red-rock pass in the Swart-
Kenya’s Masai Mara berg mountains of South Africa’s Western Cape
National Reserve feast Province. Below that natural cleft, quilted farm
on an ostrich egg. The fields spread out across a semiarid plateau encir-
world’s largest bird lays cled by ragged mountains. The Little Karoo is an
the world’s biggest oddly remote and isolated source for the feath-
egg—as big as a ripe ery excesses of Ascot racegoers and Las Vegas
cantaloupe and equiv- showgirls. But the region around the town of
alent to two dozen Oudtshoorn (pronounced OATS-horn) has been
chicken eggs. To crack the center of the world ostrich trade for more
open the strong shells, than 150 years.
predators get inven-
tive. Jackals sometimes Beginning in the 1860s, when the feather trade
bowl one egg against was already pushing ostriches to extinction in
another; Egyptian vul- some areas, farmers here helped pioneer cap-
tive breeding. The communal nature of ostriches
tures toss stones. may have made these birds more amenable to
life in captivity. Their inability to fly or jump
CHRISTINE AND MICHEL DENIS-HUOT, also helped. Fields (or “camps”) enclosed by
NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY chest-high wire fences now contain thousands
of ostriches in seeming harmony, sometimes
This is especially true of the female, because spread out like feathered chess pieces, some-
her tawny coloration makes the fluttering of times seated in clusters. The ostrich’s evolution
her feathers more visible. The male’s black-and- suited it to the desertlike vegetation of the Lit-
white plumage can seem more constrained, like tle Karoo, which also proved ideal for growing
a tuxedo. In both sexes, the feathers are unusu- bright green patches of irrigated alfalfa, the pre-
ally long and full, especially on the wings and ferred feed for farmed ostriches.
tail. They also lack the tiny hooks, or barbi-
cels, that cinch feathers together in most other Farmworkers wander through the camps
birds. This is what gives them such a captivating each day during the breeding season, gathering
tendency to drift and billow in the breeze. It’s eggs for delivery to commercial incubator units:
functional: The ostrich can loosen the feathers 112 eggs per rack, 1,008 eggs per unit, slowly
to help dissipate body heat or draw them close to rotating, at 96.8 degrees. “At day 42,” says Saag
conserve it. That flounciness is also the quality Jonker, a prominent local farmer, “the chick
that has caused human fashion to repeatedly fall breaks through into an air pocket in the egg,
in and out of love with ostrich feathers. inhales, and gets the strength to break through
the shell.” It may live a year, if bred for meat
The route to the heart of the ostrich trade runs and leather, up to 15 years if bred for feathers,
with plucking at roughly nine-month intervals.

The ostrich trade has always been an unpre-
dictable business, with prices fluctuating wildly
at the whim of international fashion. It’s in a
down cycle at the moment, and Jonker and his
wife, Hazel, chat hopefully about Kate Middle-
ton’s taste in ostrich-feather hats and about how
soon Louis Vuitton might come back to ostrich
leather for its bags.

The golden age for the ostrich trade and
Oudtshoorn began in about 1870, driven by
demand for ostrich feathers on the hats of fash-
ionable women. “Feather mansions” from that
era still grace Oudtshoorn’s streets with towers,
gables, wraparound porches, and fancy trim-
work known locally as “broekie” lace, from the
Afrikaans word for women’s underwear. It’s a

N O B O D Y ’ S F O O L 107

Ostriches are the only
animals with double
kneecaps, a little-
understood oddity
that may help them
run faster. But speed

isn’t the only asset that
enables such large,

conspicuous birds to
escape the perils of
the African savanna.
They’re also equipped
with the largest eyes
of any land animal and
vision so sharp that
an ostrich on an open
plain can spot trouble
almost two miles away.

RICHARD DU TOIT,
NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY

108



measure of just how prosperous the trade was them in their homes, sometimes for days.”
that in 1912, the most valuable cargo carried Early immigrants tended to become peddlers.
by the Titanic wasn’t diamonds or gold but 12
cases of ostrich plumes valued at $2.3 million in But those who followed had worked often in com-
today’s money. That all ended, though, in 1914, modities or the clothing trade, and the diaspora
when war and open-roofed motorcars made big, meant they had connections with immigrant
plumy hats suddenly unfashionable. communities in those trades in London, New
York, and other great cities. Oudtshoorn’s feather
One morning in town, I run into Maurice business grew up largely through those con-
“Mickey” Fisch, a retired ostrich farmer and a nections, in a network that extended from the
remnant of the Jewish community that once Yiddish-speaking feather buyer traveling farm
dominated the world ostrich trade from Oudts- to farm, on up to the artisans who fabricated
hoorn. Jewish immigrants, driven from Europe ostrich-feather products and the retail merchants
by political and economic oppression, began who sold them. At the height of the trade, several
arriving in the late 19th century. hundred Jewish families lived in Oudtshoorn
and supported two synagogues.
“And the Afrikaners welcomed them with
open arms,” Fisch says. “They accommodated Fisch holds open a book about local history

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

At an ostrich farm in from the surrounding area to make a minyan, a
Germany, a chick takes quorum, for holy day services. After 50 years of
shelter between a par- farming, Fisch too has left the ostrich business,
and says good riddance. His view of ostriches
ent’s massive feet. In echoes Job 39:16-17, which calls them “deprived”
the 18th century ostrich of wisdom and indifferent even to the well-being
of their own offspring. Ostriches, says Fisch, are
feathers became so “stupid birds that just had nice feathers.”
fashionable in Europe
I don’t ask him about their parenting skills,
that intense hunting but I get a chance to find out for myself soon
caused the birds to after. One morning at De Hoop Nature Reserve
on the southern tip of Africa, I watch a male
decline over much of ostrich and a female feeding. They are watching
their range. Domesti- me too, but after a while they relax, and, as if on
cated in South Africa in signal, nine ostrich chicks come out of hiding.
the 1860s, they’re now They’re plump little creatures a week or two old,
raised worldwide for dodo-like, with tawny, mottled necks and short,
their feathers, meat, bristling down on their bodies. They feed, and
their parents follow close behind, also feeding.
and supple leather.
Soon after, a murderous trio of baboons
and points to a photo of his grandfather and approaches across a field. The male ostrich
namesake, Maurice Lipschitz. “He was the big- glowers, then runs forward, pushing them away.
gest ostrich farmer in the world,” says Fisch. The baboons come back again and again, but
“When he died in 1936, he owned 35 farms.” Mon- each time the male blocks their path. Then an
tague House, the feather mansion he built, had entire troop of baboons wanders out onto the
a ballroom, a wine cellar, and a 400-gallon tub clearing. The chicks huddle together nervously
lined with Carrara marble. This may not have as the two adult ostriches stand glaring at these
been as elegant as it sounds: There were six sons intruders. Prudently, the baboons pass by, look-
and four daughters, says Fisch, and “one bath a ing elsewhere, as if an ostrich sandwich is the
week for all those children.” last thing on their minds.

The house still stands, but it’s subdivided now The baboons have no sooner moved off than
into a restaurant, a shop, a residence, and a doc- it begins to rain, a lashing, sideways, coastal
tor’s office. The ostrich trade is in the hands of a sort of cloudburst. The male and female imme-
nondenominational co-op, and the Jewish fam- diately sit down and lift their wings as the chicks
ilies have dwindled to so few that the surviving come racing in for cover. So many of them nose
synagogue has to bring in Jewish worshippers in under the dad’s left wing that they look like
piglets on a sow. Then the wings come down and
they vanish, entirely sheltered from the chilling
rain. When the downpour finally stops, one of
the chicks pops up its head through the wing
feathers and looks around, literally wearing its
parent as a raincoat. It’s pretty much the oppo-
site of burying its head in the sand. The weather
being acceptable, it slips out, still dry and warm,
into the world again.

Maybe you wouldn’t call that intelligence,
but it suggests a certain genius for survival.
And I walk away thinking we should all be such
good parents. j

Author Richard Conniff’s books about wildlife
include Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time.
Klaus Nigge trained and worked as a biologist
before becoming a wildlife photojournalist.

N O B O DY ’ S F O O L 111



A P R O J E C T T O S AV E
OCEANS EXPANDS ITS
MISSION TO HELP BOOST

FISH STOCKS AND
STA B I L I Z E T H E C LI M AT E .

THE POWER OF PROTECTION

B Y K E N N E DY WA R N E
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ENRIC SALA

113

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

Beneath the surface PREVIOUS PHOTO
of a stormy sea off
Palau lie diverse, thriv- Black-striped salema
ing corals. The tiny off Isabela Island in
island nation has pro- the Galápagos make
tected 80 percent of way for a sea lion.
its waters as a no-take After a 2015 Pristine
zone closed to fishing— Seas expedition,
the largest percentage a new reserve around
of protected marine Darwin and Wolf
territory in the world. Islands added more
The remaining 20 per- than 15,000 square
cent can be fished only miles of protected
by Palauans. area that is closed
to fishing.

T H E P O W E R O F P R O T E C T I O N 115

When Enric Sala quit his job
as a professor at Scripps

Institution of Oceanography in
2007, it was because he was tired
of writing death notices. ‘I found

myself writing the obituary of
the ocean with more and more

precision,’ he says.

A school of juvenile Rather than spend any more of his life docu-
jacks near Gabon shel- menting the dying, Sala decided to try to safe-
guard the living in the few remaining patches of
ters amid the six-foot ocean where the Grim Reaper had yet to swing
tentacles of a jellyfish. his scythe.

The Gabon Marine These scattered remnants are the last wild
Protected Area Net- places of the sea—the marine equivalent of the
work covers 28 percent remotest tracts of old-growth forest in the Ama-
of Gabon’s waters and zon—still undamaged by overfishing, pollution,
includes two dozen and climate change. “It was necessary for us to
go to places that still look like the ocean as it was
species of whales, 500 years ago,” Sala says. “To go back to the best
dolphins, and turtles. baselines we have for what a healthy ocean used
to be like. These places are the blueprint. They are
the instruction manual. Maybe we cannot bring
all of the ocean back to this state, but these places
show us what the potential is. They give us hope.”

To protect these places, Sala and the National
Geographic Society launched the Pristine Seas
project in 2008. Over the past 12 years, Pristine
Seas has helped create 22 marine reserves, from
the giant kelp forests south of Cape Horn to the
humpback whale nurseries of Gabon. These
make up two-thirds of the world’s fully protected

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



marine areas—covering more than two million
square miles in all. Now Sala and his team have
set an even more ambitious goal: to see more than
a third of the world’s ocean conserved for the pur-
pose not just of sustaining biodiversity but also
of replenishing fish stocks and storing carbon.

F O R S A L A , O N E O F T H E M O S T satisfying aspects Mangroves in shallow,
of his job is collaborating with local communi- murky waters near the
ties in the places he and his team are seeking to shores of Isabela Island
preserve. At Pitcairn Island, a British overseas provide excellent
territory in the South Pacific, the Pristine Seas nurseries for blacktip
team worked closely with the island’s 50 or so sharks. Some species
inhabitants, most of whom are descendants of of sharks lay eggs,
the mutineers of the H.M.S. Bounty, the Royal but female blacktips
Navy ship commandeered by members of its produce four to
crew in 1789. 10 swimming pups
per litter.
“We showed them an underwater world they
had never seen,” Sala recalls. “Huge schools of
barracudas, clusters of giant clams, reef sharks
swimming in some of the clearest waters ever
measured in the Pacific. We said to them: ‘This
is one of the most pristine places on the planet,
and it belongs to you. But it is at risk because of
foreign fishing vessels that fish illegally in your
waters. You have an opportunity to address that.’”

The Pitcairn Islanders began to see themselves
as heroes of their own story, Sala says, and in
2015, at the islanders’ request, the British gov-
ernment created a 322,000-square-mile marine
reserve around Pitcairn and its uninhabited
neighbors: Ducie, Oeno, and Henderson.

Far to the west of Pitcairn, in Micronesia, Pris-
tine Seas worked with indigenous Palauans to
give an ancient conservation tradition a modern
twist. For centuries Palauans have used tempo-
rary fishing closures known as buls to preserve
and rebuild their reef fish stocks. Over the years
they created 35 reserves that protected marine
life around their islands, some of which banned
fishing permanently. Palau’s president, Tommy
Remengesau, asked Sala’s team to compare the
abundance of fish inside and outside the no-take
reserves. They found that the species targeted
by fishers were almost twice as plentiful within
the no-take areas.

The team filmed their dives and screened the
footage throughout Palau. “We wanted Palau-
ans to see how well their traditional manage-
ment works and that, as well as protecting their
reefs, it benefits tourism,” Sala says. In 2015
Palau’s national congress established a no-take
marine sanctuary covering 80 percent of the

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

country’s exclusive economic zone—an emphatic diversity and abundance. Most people don’t
commitment to the idea that a flourishing econ- know what’s been lost.
omy depends on a healthy environment.
The loss is a result of disturbed or destroyed
T H AT T RU T H I S N ’ T U N I V E R S A L LY acknowledged. habitats, of overfishing, and of climate change
In most parts of the world, marine conservation that is both warming and acidifying the ocean.
is stymied by opposition from fishing, oil, and Pristine Seas is now reshaping its mission to
mining interests. A mere 7 percent of the world’s address all three threats. With a network of
ocean has any protection—mostly weak rules, no-take marine protected areas (MPAs), Sala
with multiple exceptions—and only 2.5 percent believes, it’s possible to benefit biodiversity, food
is highly protected from exploitation. Outside of security, and climate simultaneously.
these zones, the ocean’s story is one of continu-
ing depletion. Each human generation grows up The biodiversity benefit is self-evident—as
with a new normal, a lower baseline of marine it is on land, where parks and refuges protect
thousands of threatened species. How MPAs
The nonprofit National Geographic Society, working benefit fisheries is less obvious. The common
to conserve Earth’s resources, helped fund this article. perception is that closing areas to fishing hurts
fishing interests. But this perception is wrong,
Sala argues.

T H E P O W E R O F P R O T E C T I O N 119

Two giant manta rays
feed on ocean plank-
ton carried by the
incoming tide at a reef
in Palau. The country’s
protected areas
sustain twice as many
fish and five times
the number of pred-
atory fish as nearby
unprotected areas.

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

T H E P O W E R O F P R O T E C T I O N 121

ASIA NORTH PACIFIC OCEA N NORTH
AMERICA

PAPAHANAUMOKUAKEA Hawaiian
MARINE NAT. MON. Islands

REVILLAGIGEDO NAT. PARK
120 35 20

PACIFIC REMOTE ISLANDS Li
MARINE NAT. MONUMENT
SOUATMHER.CLIPPERTON I. MARINEOsa Peninsula
286 50 25 PROTECTED AREA
ne Islands 105 10 20 223 185 30
EQUATOR

M I C R O N K I SOUTHERN LINE IS. DARWIN AND WOLF
IA MARINE SANCTUARY
E S R IBATI MARINE RESERVE
325 112 71 122
PHOENIX ISLANDS MALPELO
PALAU NATIONAL PROTECTED AREA Galápagos Is. FAUNA
MARINE SANCTUARY AND FLORA
196 109 76 NIUE MOANA MAHU SEAMOUNTS MARINE SANCTUARY
MARINE PROTECTED AREA MANAGEMENT AREA
145
95 175
9
295 59 121 Easter
Island 10
Rapa Iti MOTU MOTIRO HIVA
New Caledonia PITCAIRN IS. MARINE PARK
182 44 89 MARINE RES.
62 40 20
SOUTH 203 64 70
CORAL SEA NATURAL PARK PACIFIC
325 115 62 NAZCA-DESVENTURADAS MARINE PARK
OCEAN 25 96 49
A
AUSTRALI
JUAN FERNÁNDEZ MARINE PARK
58 120 47

Patagonian Fjords

19 137

ROSS SEA DIEGO RAMÍREZ ISLANDS Tierra del Fuego
REGION MARINE AND DRAKE PASSAGE Isla de los Estados
PROTECTED AREA MARINE PARK
25 122 NAMUNCURÁ-
BURDWOOD
Antarctic Peninsula BANK II NAT.
MARINE RES.
26 165 32
YAGANES
A N TA RC T I C A MARINE N.P.

35
132

WHAT TO PRIORITY AREAS
PROTECT NEXT
Protecting 35 percent of
The National Geographic Society launched the Pristine Seas project the ocean (green areas)
in 2008 to explore and preserve the ocean. Pristine Seas has would benefit biodiversity,
conducted 30 expeditions and helped create 22 marine reserves. food production, and
Its new research indicates crucial areas to safeguard in the future. carbon storage. Dark green
shading indicates top
conservation priorities.

Lowest Highest

Non-priority ocean

Expedition Protected area designation

LiNnoretIhs.ern
cPrriesattiende Seas
LSPiaoncuietfIihsc.erRnemote Is.
Cocos I.
HiMvotau Motiro
ESSaaelsaatsemryoIuslGnaótnsmdez and
Pitcairn Is.
Gabon
Desventuradas Is.
FSNrMoeaounwtzzahCJeamrolsbneiedfqouLneaiand

2005 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Expedition First official Discovered deepest Surveyed the
sparked the idea expedition known living plant northernmost
for Pristine Seas kelp forest

TUVAIJUITTUQ MARINE
PROTECTED AREA

NOARMER RUSSIAN ARCTIC 5,633
NATIONAL PARK
16 113 216 Number of dives

TH AOTCNLEOAARNNTTHIC EUROPE 61,180
ICA
Nautical miles* traveled
NORTHEAST
CANYONS AND 137

SEAMOUNTS Submersible dives
M.N.M.
ASIA
Azores

95 120 104

Selvagens Islands

51 31 69

AFRICA I NODC EI AANN

SOUTH EQUATOR CHAGOS MARINE
MERICA PROTECTED AREA

A ASCENSION
ISLAND MARINE
PROTECTED AREA GABON MARINE ALDABRA GROUP MARINE N.P.
PROTECTED AREA 360 35 165
28
NETWORK

41

SOUTH 40 Southern Mozambique
AT L A N T IC 43
358 58 50 48
OCEAN

Tristan da Cunha

42 7 2

ANTARCTICA *ONE NAUTICAL MILE
EQUALS 1.15 MILES.
M A R I N E C O N S E RVAT I O N SPECIES SURVEYS
While 7 percent of the ocean has The team has measured CHRISTINE FELLENZ, TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO,
some form of protection, only 2.5 the size, abundance, AND IRENE BERMAN-VAPORIS, NGM STAFF
percent is highly protected from and biomass of more
extractive activities. than 7,000 species so far. SOURCES: PRISTINE SEAS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY;
ENVIRONMENTAL MARKET SOLUTIONS LAB, UC SANTA
Highly protected marine area affiliated Fishes 3,812 species BARBARA; TRISHA ATWOOD, UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
with Pristine Seas Invertebrates 1,828
Algae 1,089 2,260,214
Other highly protected marine area Corals 756 square miles

Other Pristine Seas expedition site protected
SPSPaaeolcyuiactfuihhceelrRlneesL,miLontaeseItIs.Is.c,eRaArpeaaIti
TJCCPSPRDGrGAllNiiiiuaeustaaaallslrascpcpztbavsánaecippawiauoipaarneenFgn-nasrrnneittedrDgIo&noosaAneo.srn,nnssácIICIIWIv.nt..suNi,s.oei.ldcnfnuRehteezau,Ivrisl.alCadaagpisegeHdoronIs.
YCRDOANNAAaiMMoseszaanreaagacvtlloiaagmmlealrppPlrnuouenaeeeScellssnntineRgsiiccooi,aaocIInuug..nrrsAPmleIíááu.erl--ddnaeBBaoizuuIbnIrrsrs.s,add.ulRwwaG&rooosDooosruddaSpkBBeeaaannPkkasIIIIs,.,YJaugaannFeesrnández Is.
PNMaitauaheguoMnoiaannaFjords

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Pacific Remote Palau Discovered the highest Africa's largest Discovered a new Atlantic Ocean's
Is. monument protects 80% known biomass of sharks network of MPAs hydrothermal vent field largest MPA
expanded of its waters

FIRST ROW

Southern king crab, Isla
de los Estados, Argen-
tina; sea whip goby on
soft coral, Palau; sunset

wrasse, Easter Island,
Chile; octopus, San

Ambrosio, Desventura-
das Islands, Chile

SECOND ROW

Green sea turtle, Cocos
Island, Costa Rica; gold-

spot sea bream, Palau;
squat lobster, Isla de

los Estados; crosshatch
triggerfish, Easter Island

THIRD ROW

Pink anemonefish, New
Caledonia; twinspot

snapper, Palau; golden
jellyfish, Jellyfish Lake,

Palau; honeycomb
moray on a bed of
sun corals, Gabon

FOURTH ROW

Giant coral (unidenti-
fied), probably hun-
dreds of years old,

Easter Island; scalloped
hammerheads, Cocos
Island; black-sided
hawkfish, Henderson
Island, Pitcairn Islands;
South American sea

lion, Isla de los Estados

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

T H E P O W E R O F P R O T E C T I O N 125

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

Bottlenose dolphins
swim in Revillagigedo
National Park, south of
Baja California. At about
57,000 square miles, it’s
North America’s largest
fully protected marine
reserve, home to silky
sharks, hammerhead
sharks, whale sharks,
giant manta rays, tuna,
and humpback whales.

T H E P O W E R O F P R O T E C T I O N 127

“The fishing industry says we can’t have more Atlantic walruses feed
no-take areas because we need to catch more fish and rest in a shallow
to feed nearly 10 billion people,” the projected passage on Northbrook
world population in 2050, he says. “But the worst Island in Franz Josef
enemy of fishing is overfishing.” Land. The archipelago
was added to the
The global fish catch has at best plateaued Russian Arctic National
since the mid-1990s—some researchers say it Park in 2016 to protect
has actually declined—even as the fishing indus- species such as polar
try has increased its efforts to catch fish. The bears, bowhead whales,
reason is that so many fish stocks are depleted ivory gulls, and Atlantic
and need a chance to rebuild. “Protected areas walruses. The walruses
are not the enemy of fishing,” Sala says. “Our were on the brink of
analysis shows that protection of the ocean can extinction by the 1900s
produce a net benefit to fishing.” because of hunting;
now there are more
A case in point is what happened to the than 10,000.
Hawaiian tuna longline fishery in the wake of
the creation and expansion of two U.S. protected
areas in the Pacific. The Papahānaumokuākea
Marine National Monument and the Pacific
Remote Islands Marine National Monument
are among the largest MPAs on Earth; together
they’re roughly four times the size of Texas.
They provide a haven for corals, fish, birds,
sharks, and whales. But because they exclude
commercial fishing in what amounts to about
a quarter of the entire U.S. exclusive economic
zone, fishers argued against them. Some
researchers have found, however, that there
has been no lasting economic harm to the local
fishing industry.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the more
fully an area is protected, the greater the benefit
to fishers operating outside its boundary—an
outcome that has been documented in species
ranging from tuna to lobsters to clams. Fully
protected marine reserves, Sala says, are like
an investment account with an untouched prin-
cipal: They provide yearly returns in the form
of adult and larval fish and invertebrates that
spill out of the reserves and replenish the stocks
that fishers target.

Still, MPAs are only as secure as the political
will to maintain them—including in the U.S.,
where President Trump has stated that he is
inclined to open the nation’s only Atlantic marine
national monument to commercial fishing.

The climate benefit of MPAs arises because
carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas
in the atmosphere and marine sediments are
one of Earth’s main carbon reservoirs, storing
more carbon than soils on land. Undisturbed
sediments can lock up carbon for thousands of
years. When sediments are disturbed by bottom

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





trawling or seabed mining, the stored carbon is 35 percent, would provide 64 percent of the bio-
released back into circulation. diversity benefits and shield 28 percent of vul-
nerable carbon while increasing the global fish
Just as there’s more than one reason to save a catch by almost 10 million metric tons. If instead
forest, there’s more than one benefit to protect- of pursuing strictly national priorities, countries
ing the ocean, and that makes the case for doing cooperated to set aside the most strategic areas
so more compelling. “We cannot think of bio- of the ocean, they could achieve the same results
diversity in isolation anymore,” Sala says, “and by protecting less than half as much area.
we cannot think of climate in isolation. It will
be impossible to achieve the goals of the Paris Even that may sound impossible. But the
climate agreement”—to keep global warming alternative is dire. Do we want to keep writing
from exceeding the widely accepted disaster and reading marine obituaries, or do we want
threshold of two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees our children to inherit an abundant, flourishing
Fahrenheit—“unless we have a significant pro- ocean? For now, we still get to choose. j
portion of the planet in a natural state.”
Author Kennedy Warne has written about the sea
How large a proportion? Sala and his team for National Geographic since 2002. Photographer
calculate that a 14-fold expansion of the fully Enric Sala is a National Geographic Society
protected part of the ocean, from 2.5 percent to explorer-in-residence.

T H E P O W E R O F P R O T E C T I O N 129

Dominik Lubecki
practices flipping over
a bench in Nowy Port,
a working-class district
where dockhands in
1946 launched one of
the first communist-era
strikes demanding bet-
ter working conditions.
When he’s not skate-
boarding or composing
hip-hop, “Lulek” works
as a volunteer with
Gdańsk’s youth.

130

POLAND DRAWS INSPIRATION FROM THE CITY THAT GAVE BIRTH
TO THE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT 40 YEARS AGO.

WAITING FOR GDAŃSK

BY VICTORIA POPE PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUSTYNA MIELNIKIEWICZ



In communist times,
the Gdańsk Shipyard
employed as many as
20,000 workers and
was the birthplace of
Solidarity, the country’s
first independent trade
union. Smaller shipyards
now manufacture luxury
yachts as well as towers
for wind turbines.

FOR THE LONGEST A women’s march,
TIME, I ASSOCIATED called Manifa, wound
THE CITY OF GDAŃSK through Old Town this
WITH MY POLICE spring, highlighting
DETENTION. IT WAS feminist and environ-
DECEMBER 16, 1982, mental concerns with
AND A YEAR EARLIER the slogan “Women
THE COMMUNIST and Earth have too
AUTHORITIES HAD much to bear.” Gdańsk,
IMPOSED MARTIAL LAW. with its multicultural
history, has long
fostered progressive
social movements.

They were signaling an easing of restrictions To Baltic Sea
by releasing the Solidarity trade union leader
Lech Wałęsa after 11 months of internment. A Ostrów Gdańsk
government spokesman smugly described him Island
as “the former head of a former union.” Wałęsa
was due to give a speech that day, and about 40 HISTORIC
of us—foreign correspondents, photographers,
and our Polish assistants—were clustered next to GDAŃSK (LENIN) POLAND
the entrance to his apartment block, expecting
to go inside for an interview. S H I P YA R D EUROPE
Martwa
Instead, police barred us from entering. European
Because Solidarity was banned at the time, Solidarity
Wałęsa’s speech and our attempt to see him
were deemed illegal. The face-off was at first Centre
alarming—many Poles had been imprisoned
during the crackdown. But the tension gave Fallen Shipyard Gate No. 2 Wisła
Workers Monument

GDAŃ Museum of the
Second World War
Złota Brama OLD
(Golden Gate) TOWN SK

Granary Island

Ulica Długa 2,000 ft
(Long Street) 500 m

134 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C SOREN WALLJASPER AND SCOTT ZILLMER, NGM STAFF
SOURCE: ANNA MYDLARSKA, EUROPEAN SOLIDARITY CENTRE

way to comic relief. You see, I was four months since the August shipyard strikes that birthed the
pregnant, and particularly the Poles in our group Solidarity movement, setting Poland on the road
were outraged that the police would subject me to democracy. Those strikes drew journalists like
to any stress, much less detention—and they me to the country to cover the peaceful revolu-
let the officers know it. Soon it seemed that half tion. Based in Warsaw for three years, I reported
the apartment complex had heard I was with on the rise of the 10 million–strong union. While
child. Women stopped to bawl out the police, on a fellowship in 1989 I chronicled the compro-
who accepted this dressing-down with quiet mise between the opposition and the communist
embarrassment. In those times few Poles felt party that led to partially free elections—and a
friendly toward the authorities, and it must have landslide victory for Solidarity. The country has
been cathartic to lecture these representatives of since adopted a new constitution, protecting the
power on proper Polish behavior. Still, we were independence of the judiciary and other institu-
crammed into windowless vans and transported tions, but the present government is widely seen
to the station. There we were merely warned to as undermining these democratic foundations.
stay away from Wałęsa and released.
In this Baltic seaport, with a history of trading
Now I am back in Gdańsk. It’s been 40 years goods, people, and ideas dating to the Middle

WA I T I N G F O R G D A Ń S K 135

Lech Wałęsa, a shipyard of Poland in 1990. Now recalls it as “a certain stage, a certain moment,”
electrician, became 76 years old, he remains adding, “I expected it wasn’t the last stage in my
the leader of Solidarity engaged in politics, fight.” In his negotiations, he tells me, “as I knew
in 1980, winner of the demanding that the that I wasn’t going to win too much, I was trying
Nobel Peace Prize government respect to act so as not to lose too much.”
in 1983, and president the constitution.
At one point during our conversation, I inter-
Ages, perhaps not revolution but certainly rebel- ject with a friendly wisecrack: “I know you
lion is still alive. The city has defied the ruling weren’t on a motorboat.” It’s a reference to alle-
Law and Justice party and gained a reputation gations he showed up in a military boat after the
for tolerance. When Poland refused to accept strike was under way. The claim, made by some
refugees as part of the European Union resettle- of his critics, seeks to prove police collaboration.
ment plan, Gdańsk said it would welcome them. Wałęsa limits his rebuttal to a roll of his eyes.
And when the leader of the ruling party, Jarosław
Kaczyński, called LGBT ideology a threat to Pol- We go back to the meaning of his shirt. He sug-
ish identity and a “massive storm of evil,” city gests Poland fits a global trend toward declining
officials vowed to protect sexual minorities. democratic values. He singles out laws that the
ruling party pushed through parliament curbing
I F G DA Ń S K I S T H E O P P O S I T I O N C I T Y, the European the independence of the courts. “For me also, the
Solidarity Centre is its heart. It’s a living monument judicial system and other actions were an obsta-
to the trade union and the legacy of the strikes, cle,” he admits, recalling the challenges he faced
which ended nearby at the historic Gate No. 2 to when he was president from 1990 to 1995. But he
the Gdańsk Shipyard, also known then as the Lenin says he didn’t try to “liquidate” the independent
Shipyard. Wałęsa has an office on the second floor. judiciary. “Once you eliminate one obstacle, then
When I meet with him, he’s wearing a gray shirt you need to eliminate the next obstacle. That’s
emblazoned with the word KONSTYTUCJA. He how dictatorships emerge.”
has many versions of this shirt and even wore one
to President George H. W. Bush’s state funeral. G DA Ń S K I S B O T H G R I T A N D E L E G A N C E . Around
Its message: The ruling party has trampled basic the port’s industrial zone, the skyline is a tangle
constitutional rights. The state-controlled media of cranes, lifting hooks, and smokestacks. Here
has choice words for Wałęsa too, depicting him as and there, pockmarks left from World War II are
a traitor and a has-been. visible on facades. In the city center, however,
the skyline is a pristine panorama of church
After cordial greetings, Wałęsa deepens his spires, towers, and red-tile roofs. The street-
voice and briskly says, “Pierwsze pytanie”— scape, too, is marvelously Old World, thanks to
first question—as if he’s pressing a stopwatch a painstaking postwar reconstruction effort.
to begin a race. Does he have somewhere to go,
or is it simply a way of taking command? But he Ulica Długa, the main pedestrian walkway,
patiently responds when I ask about the moment is rightfully considered the crown jewel. The
he entered the shipyard on August 14, 1980. He street is lined with rebuilt 16th- and 17th-century
Flemish-style buildings with ornate gables
topped with sculptures, urns, and finials. They
are suitably grand for the Dutch merchant
princes and others who made fortunes ship-
ping grain. For centuries, Gdańsk—or Danzig,
as it was called for most of its history—was a
cosmopolitan and prosperous city. As a member
of the Hanseatic League, a trading alliance that
began in the 12th century, it was linked to ports
as disparate as London and Novgorod.

Nearby is the famous Złota Brama, the Golden
Gate, built in the first part of the 17th century
and reconstructed after it was destroyed in
World War II. With its huge two-story windows
and classical columns, it’s eye-catching, but I
am headed for a simple, black marble plaque,

136 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C MARK HENLEY, PANOS PICTURES

set in the pavement nearby. It reads, “Gdańsk POLAND’S POSTWAR PATH
is generous. Gdańsk shares its good. Gdańsk
wants to be a city of solidarity”—words spoken From a communist Soviet satellite to a new
by Mayor Paweł Adamowicz moments before
he was savagely stabbed in this area in front of democracy, the Eastern European country
an audience of hundreds in January 2019, an
assault that killed him. The attacker had a his- has had a tumultuous postwar history.
tory of violent crime, but to many in Gdańsk,
the assassination reflected the febrile political JANUARY 1947 FEBRUARY 1989
climate that pitted their city’s vision of openness
against the aggrieved nationalism and vitriol of In the aftermath of World War Talks between the government
the ruling party. II and Soviet occupation, the and the still-banned Solidarity
Polish communist party takes lead to the union’s legalization,
“Our situation here is so sharp right now,” says power in a fraudulent election. the formation of a Senate,
Julia Borzeszkowska, a 20-year-old first-year law and the creation of the office
student at Gdańsk University. “The violence DECEMBER 1970 of president.
and hate is so strong that it pushed someone
to murder another person.” In her last year of Demonstrations and strikes JUNE 1989
high school, Borzeszkowska organized a protest against price hikes break out
called March Beyond Divisions, which drew 1,500 in Gdańsk and spread to other Solidarity wins all but one
young people into the streets. Baltic coast cities. At least of the contested seats in
40 people are killed and more the parliamentary election.
As she peers out from oversize wire-rimmed than a thousand wounded.
eyeglasses, Borzeszkowska’s direct, blunt words MARCH 1990
belie the quavering in her voice. “My generation OCTOBER 1978
was raised believing in freedom, solidarity, and Mikhail Gorbachev is elected
fighting for democracy. We learned this from our Karol Józef Wojtyła, president of the Soviet Union.
parents and grandparents. These issues were the archbishop of Kraków, He spearheads reforms, which
important to them, and they are important for becomes Pope John Paul II. reverberate throughout
us right now.” She speaks with utter conviction, His 1979 visit to Poland rallies Poland and Eastern Europe.
and I am reminded of the forthrightness of the millions of the disaffected.
early Solidarity activists. May I use your name? I DECEMBER 1990
would ask, and usually the answer would be yes, AUGUST 1980
despite the danger. I was told more than once: I Wałęsa wins the newly estab-
want my children to know what I stood for. Led by Lech Wałęsa, workers lished presidency in Poland.
at the Gdańsk Shipyard go
Borzeszkowska vows she will return to activ- on strike. By the end of the NOVEMBER 1995
ism, and I believe her. month, authorities recognize
the Solidarity trade union. In a close election, Wałęsa
The mayor’s murder also brought thousands loses the presidency
of people to the streets in Gdańsk and Warsaw. DECEMBER 1981 to a former communist.
Aleksandra Żurowska—a prominent Gdańsk phy-
sician who, with her daughter Joanna Lisiecka- Backed by the Soviet Union, JUNE 2003
Żurowska, introduced me to people in the city— Poland’s leader declares
recalls the outpouring of grief. Friends from all martial law. Wałęsa and other In a referendum, Poles vote to
over Poland called to commiserate. “They were dissidents are arrested. join the European Union.
telling me: We are looking at what’s happening
in Gdańsk, and we are waiting again. Always OCTOBER 1982 SEPTEMBER 2005
Gdańsk leads us in these moments.”
Solidarity is banned. The socially conservative Law
Though the assassination was 14 months and Justice party comes in
before my visit, the subject comes up often, JULY 1983 first in the general elections.
even in casual exchanges. It’s clearly seen as a
moment of reckoning for the city and its ideals. Martial law is lifted. OCTOBER 2007
“In my daily life I do not dwell on that horri-
ble Sunday,” says the current mayor, Aleksan- The largest opposition party,
dra Dulkiewicz, who also supports progressive the liberal Civic Platform, wins
causes and welcoming non-Poles. Now many in early general elections.

MAY 2015

Law and Justice wins a majority
in parliamentary elections.

JULY 2017

Large demonstrations protest
legislative proposals that
are seen as endangering the
independence of the judiciary.

JANUARY 2019

Gdańsk’s mayor, Paweł Ada-
mowicz, is assassinated. Some
see his death as a result of
rising intolerance encouraged
by the Law and Justice party.

PHOTOS (FROM TOP): EDMUND PEPLINSKI, FORUM, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; WOJCIECH KRYNSKI,
FORUM, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; PETER MARLOW, MAGNUM PHOTOS; WOJCIECH STRÓŻYK

CLOCKWISE FROM

TOP LEFT

The mayor of Gdańsk,
Aleksandra Dulkiewicz,

stands before the
21 demands written by

activists on plywood
panels and displayed
during the 1980 strike
at the Gdańsk Shipyard.
The former deputy to

a mayor who was
murdered, she won a
landslide victory in 2019.

Gdańsk figures large
in World War II history

as the site of the
Battle of Westerplatte.
In September 1939, Nazi
Germany launched its
invasion of Poland with

an attack on a garri-
son in the city’s harbor.
Despite damage to the

barracks, defenders
held on for seven days.

Jerzy Bohdan Szumczyk
created his mobile

sculpture “SOS” as a
protest against the
destruction of historic
shipyard buildings
and cranes in an area
slated for renewal.

A group of young
acolytes serve at a Mass

at St. John’s Church.
Altar girls are still an

exception in Polish
Catholic churches. The
church’s pastor, Krzysztof
Niedałtowski, is a well-

known social activist.

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

WA I T I N G F O R G D A Ń S K 139

In this view from
Granary Island,
renovated buildings
mix with modern
ones on the banks of
the Motława River.
The island was once
a shipping hub of this
Baltic seaport, where
hundreds of warehouses
stored grain. Most
of the historic buildings
were destroyed during
World War II, but some
of the ruins are being
restored as the island
is redeveloped.

towns and cities in Poland follow what’s called city’s growing ethnic mix, that heritage is being
the Gdańsk model of integrating foreigners. That reborn, Hall says.
embrace of newcomers—of 460,000 citizens,
about 25,000 are immigrants from the former T H E R E I S A FA M O U S L I N E from a novel by William
Soviet Union, Rwanda, and Syria—is consistent Faulkner that I first learned in Poland, when a
with the city’s past, notes Aleksander Hall, a journalist friend, Jacek Kalabiński, quoted it to
historian and Gdańsk native. explain why Poles seem fixated on painful chap-
ters of their history. “The past is never dead. It’s
“One unique aspect of Gdańsk was that it was not even past.” Those sentences run through
always a multicultural city,” he explains. As a my head as I learn about state efforts to control
port, it was a freewheeling commercial hub, the historical narrative in Gdańsk. The city’s
welcoming traders and other foreigners from World War II museum had its founding direc-
many countries, particularly Germans, but tor and curators pushed out by the Ministry of
also Scots, the Dutch, and the English. During Culture, which objected that the exhibits were
Gdańsk’s Reformation in the 1600s, it sheltered “not Polish enough.”
persecuted religious groups—Dutch Mennonites
as well as Huguenots and Jews. Because of the Lisiecka-Żurowska and I talk about the war

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

while traveling on the train to Gdańsk. She By the end of the war, most of the city lay in
grew up there, and her family story speaks to ruins. What was left of the German population
the complexities of the conflict as it played fled or was expelled. Poles were forcibly removed
out in her hometown. On the eve of the war, from areas such as Ukraine (annexed by the
the city was predominantly German-speak- Soviet Union) and resettled around Poland. Peo-
ing but had an established Polish community. ple in search of jobs—Wałęsa told me most were
It had received special status as a free city ambitious youth who felt suffocated by small-
after World War I; Poles were given control town life—flocked to Gdańsk to work in the
of the railways and access to the port. On shipyards and other industries. Wałęsa’s wife,
September 1, 1939—the start of World War II—a Danuta, recalls turning to her mother before
German battleship fired on a Polish garrison, boarding a bus leaving her village and blurting
which held out for seven days despite being out, “I will not come back here.”
outgunned. Lisiecka-Żurowska’s great-grand-
mother’s husband and three brothers, members That fierce determination is still part of
of the educated elite, were arrested and sent to Danuta Wałęsa, though she endured many
concentration camps, where they died. unhappy years when her husband was battling
the authorities. A friend of a friend arranges a
meeting, and we sit at the dining room table in
her light-filled family home. I remind her that
we’d met in the days when the old apartment
was jammed with visitors waiting for a word with
Lech. I mention that I always tried to greet her,
but she often seemed out of sorts, even angry.
She’s shaken by my comment, and her eyes well
with tears. She had six children at the time of
the shipyard strikes and felt isolated and alone.
“I don’t know how I had the strength to survive
all this,” she tells me.

But she more than survived. In 2011 she pub-
lished a best-selling memoir that described a
hollowed-out marriage. Nonetheless, she’s pro-
tective of her husband and condemns the ruling
party’s attacks on him. “It is absolutely outra-
geous,” she says. “This government doesn’t rec-
ognize him, and they want to say he is nobody.”
Seeing the flash of anger in her eyes, I’m re-
minded of the women at the apartment complex
and their feisty defense of a pregnant woman.

Danuta believes the country is ripe for change,
but fears there isn’t a leader to rally the oppo-
sition. “The country needs a second Wałęsa,”
she says. And not just a second Wałęsa, she
underscores, but one with a strong core of sup-
porters and advisers like her husband had when
he fought the communist regime. Though she
warns of dangers ahead—“We need to stand up
like before, or something terrible will happen”—
she’s confident that when change does come, it
will be her city that leads: “There is no braver
place in Poland than Gdańsk.” j

Victoria Pope was a foreign correspondent in
Warsaw, Bonn, and Moscow, and an editor at
this magazine. Justyna Mielnikiewicz was born
in Poland and is now based in Tbilisi, Georgia.

WA I T I N G F O R G D A Ń S K 141

INSTAGRAM PAOLO WOODS

FROM OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS

WHO Woods lived for several years in Haiti, where many
people may not read or have access to television or
Woods is a Dutch-Canadian the internet but radio is ubiquitous. In the city of Les
documentary photographer Cayes, Woods spent months photographing radio
based in Italy. programs’ hosts. One of the most popular, Sister
Melianise Gabreus broadcast a daily advice show on
WHERE 95.5 FM, the Roman Catholic diocese’s channel. She
was shy at first, says Woods, but posed for this 2013
Les Cayes, a city photo when “I told her many of her faithful listeners
in southwest Haiti would be very happy to see what she looks like.”

W H AT

A Hasselblad medium
format film camera with
a 50mm lens

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