So I Told These Nomads About the Big Bang… - Issue 101: In Our Nature
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To explain her motivations as a writer, Anna Badkhen quotes the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert: “you have little time you must give testimony.” Badkhen recently stopped by the Nautilus office to sit for an interview and take us behind the scenes of “The Men Who Planted Trees,” her cover story for the Spring 2014 Nautilus Quarterly. The title refers to a village of fishermen in Mali who are reforesting a stretch of the Bani River to stem the mudslides that threaten their livelihoods. “They became volunteer conservationists, planting back the bush,” she writes.View Video Badkhen met the villagers while walking across West Africa with nomadic Fulani cattle-herders while doing research for a forthcoming book. Born and raised in the Soviet Union, Badkhen, 38, is something of a nomad herself, a (...)