#BlackLivesMatter

#BlackLivesMatter, Diversity, Environmental Journalism, Environmental Justice, Interview, PBS, Podcast / 04.07.2022

When the folks at the Public Broadcasting Service went looking for a charismatic personality to host their latest documentary film series on the natural world, they reached out to a man with just the right skills to bring the outdoors into every home in America. Baratunde: My name is Baratunde Thurston. I am a multimedia storyteller operating at the intersection of race, technology, democracy and climate. Because I love this planet. The wild. There's nothing quite like the feeling of stepping outside. And breaking free from the modern world. I'm in...

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#BlackLivesMatter, Climbing, Diversity, Everest, Full Circle Everest, National Geographic, Podcast / 30.05.2022

On May12, 2022, history was made as the first team of Black American climbers successfully ascended to the summit of Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. Known as the Full Circle Everest Expedition, this group of six men and one woman, all of African descent, made it safely to the top of the mountain and back to Everest Base Camp. The team included an array of climbers from across the United States and one native of Kenya. They ranged in age from 26 to 62. And...

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#BlackLivesMatter, Climbing, Everest, Full Circle Everest / 27.04.2022

This is not Ngima Tenji. But this photograph of an unnamed Sherpa climber was inspired by the man who was the first known casualty of the 2022 Mount Everest climbing season in Nepal. The Full Circle Everest Expedition had begun with the trek to BaseCamp just a few days earlier when we heard reports of this tragic death. On April 14, Mr. Tenji was carrying loads from Camp 1 to Camp 2 above the Khumbu Ice Fall. He was found in a seated position still wearing his backpack....

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#BlackLivesMatter, Adventure Activism, Black Lives Matter, Climbing, Destinations, Diversity, Essays, Everest, Expedition News, Full Circle Everest, Outdoors For All / 11.04.2022

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” ~ Mark TwainThe walk from Phadking to Namche is a six-mile climb up a narrow trail of steep stone steps along a dusty path. Much of my training at 920 feet of above sea level in Wisconsin over the past year had done little to prepare...

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#BlackLivesMatter, Adventure Activism, Diversity, Environmental Journalism / 04.04.2022

Almost 60 years after the first successful American ascent of Mount Everest, a team of U.S. climbers aims to make history once again on the world’s highest peak. Led by Philip Henderson, a former instructor at the National Outdoor Leadership School and a veteran Himalayan mountaineer, this group, made up of athletes from across the country, aspires to be the first all-Black American expedition to reach the summit. This new project, called the Full Circle Everest Expedition, was announced at the Outdoor Retailer Summer show this August in Denver. Set to begin...

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#BlackLivesMatter, Black In National Parks Week, Black Lives Matter, Diversity, National Geographic, National Parks, Podcast, Public Land, Unhidden / 09.03.2022

A few weeks before his 80th birthday, I had the rare pleasure to speak by phone to the 15th director of the National Park Service Robert Stanton. From his home in Maryland, Mr. Stanton shared with me a personal history of his career as a leading figure in the preservation of public land as well as the enduring legacy of our heritage as a nation. Born in 1940, as Black American Stanton was subjected to the racially focused prohibitions of the Jim Crow era that denied him access...

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