What has slowly emerged for me as a journalist covering conflict after conflict for over a decade is a conviction that these stories about the human condition cannot be separated from stories about the natural world. We inhabit an intricate web, and the outcome of almost every story is always dependent on nature.
Today, I use nature as a foil to talk about our home – its past, present, and future. In a field that tends to emphasize difference and focus on conflict, my mission has been to tell stories that remind us of our interconnectedness, of how much we share, rather than simply emphasize our differences.
I can recall the exact moment when I truly began to understand how profound our choices are and the impact we have on one another and on all of life on this planet. It happened on a cold, snowy day in December 2009 in the village of Dvůr Králové nad Labem in the Czech Republic. On this day, I met a rhino named Sudan for the first time. Quite unexpectedly, this animal changed the way I see the world forever.
