Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I, and today I
Speaker 1: will be reading National Geographic magazine dated April twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, Radio I is a reading service intended
Speaker 1: for people who are blind or have other disabilities that
Speaker 1: make it difficult to read printed material. Please join me
Speaker 1: now for the article entitled National Geographic Celebrating thirty three
Speaker 1: bold Thinkers. Yvonne Schuenard, the unlikely mogul who built the
Speaker 1: ultimate outdoors brand then gave it away to save the planet.
Speaker 1: Ivan Schuenard laughs when he tries to remember the oldest
Speaker 1: piece of gear he owns. Almost everything I have is old,
Speaker 1: says Chouinard eighty six, grinning. I use everything until it
Speaker 1: completely falls apart. The Patagonian founder glances around the office
Speaker 1: of his Wyoming ranch, then raises his hands to show
Speaker 1: that the sleeves of his faded plaid shirt are all
Speaker 1: in tatters. My whole life has been pretty simple, really,
Speaker 1: I'm not a consumer. This may sound surprising, even hypocritical,
Speaker 1: from the founder of a company with consistent annual sales
Speaker 1: of a billion dollars, but Schuinard has long insisted he
Speaker 1: did not start Patagonia to turn a profit. I have
Speaker 1: a living, he told The New Yorker in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: but that's all I want out of it. Nearly half
Speaker 1: a century later, in September twenty twenty two, he backed
Speaker 1: up that claim, stunning the business world by announcing he
Speaker 1: was giving away the three billion dollar company, with a
Speaker 1: two percent of its shares going to a trust where
Speaker 1: profits could be used for social good and the other
Speaker 1: ninety eight percent to newly created nonprofit, the hold Fast Collective,
Speaker 1: which uses the funds to advocate for environmental causes. Earth
Speaker 1: Chouinard wrote on Patagonia's website, is now our only shareholder.
Speaker 1: After you're making enough money to support yourself, what's the
Speaker 1: reason to stay in business, he asks with a shrug.
Speaker 1: Is it a responsibility for the employees that are still
Speaker 1: there to make more money or to do something something good.
Speaker 1: We are doing good work and good things with our profits.
Speaker 1: That's the real reason to keep going. It's not an
Speaker 1: ego thing. I'll be dead in a few years anyway.
Speaker 1: Schuenard's decision to donate the company stemmed in part from
Speaker 1: his inclusion on a Forbes list of billionaires he'd never
Speaker 1: seen himself that way, and the perception rankled. Without Patagonia,
Speaker 1: he could live like the man he felt himself to be,
Speaker 1: an octagenarian cowboy on a western ranch with sixty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year, driving a nineteen eighty seven Toyota Corolla
Speaker 1: and wearing frayed flannel. He would be as happy living
Speaker 1: under a bridge or out of a van surfing God knows,
Speaker 1: where as being a wealthy man, says Chris Tomkins, Patagonian's
Speaker 1: transformative first CEO and one of Chuenard's closest confidants. That
Speaker 1: is the genius of Yvonne Schouinard's lifelong modesty is his inheritance.
Speaker 1: I was a dirt bag climber and I got my
Speaker 1: dirt bag philosophy from my dad. Chewanard says, I had
Speaker 1: no money whatsoever. I was eating cat food, ground squirrels.
Speaker 1: I would sneak into yards distill fruit. He has since
Speaker 1: climbed on every continent, and these days he finds its true.
Speaker 1: It's the sport he truly misses. My balance is shot
Speaker 1: to hell. He size still alpinisms. Visceral connection with the
Speaker 1: landscape made him realize long ago the irreparable ways humans
Speaker 1: changed the world, even when scarring stone for sport. For
Speaker 1: six decades, he has striven in business to do less
Speaker 1: harm and imperfect and unsteady process. Patagonia is not a
Speaker 1: sustainable company, he says, There's no such thing. I look
Speaker 1: at our philanthropy as not charity, but as the cost
Speaker 1: of doing business, of using non renewable resources. Once you
Speaker 1: recognize that you want to do something, Schuenard consists constantly
Speaker 1: references his pessimism. He is convinced, for instance, that the
Speaker 1: climate crisis cannot be solved until people find their spiritual
Speaker 1: connection with nature, as he did on Wyoming's peas Peeks
Speaker 1: and Yosemite's walls. He believes public companies will never choose
Speaker 1: true sustainability over shareholder gains, but encounters that doubt with
Speaker 1: an idealism about what individuals can do with the right
Speaker 1: resources at their disposal, in his case, one of the
Speaker 1: world's biggest outdoor brands. He's more active in Patagonia's operations now,
Speaker 1: he says than when he divested himself from the company
Speaker 1: two years ago. That's because he needs to make sure
Speaker 1: it can function in perpetuity. If Patagonia is going to
Speaker 1: have any chance of fulfilling its audacious mission statement to
Speaker 1: save our home planet. This was written by Grayson har
Speaker 1: Kurrn Selena Gomez the Superstars supporting mental health on a
Speaker 1: global scale. The Selena Gomez of now Golden Globe nominated actress, billionaire, philanthropist,
Speaker 1: and entrepreneur wouldn't be possible without the Selena Gomez of
Speaker 1: several years ago, when the young singer was struggling with
Speaker 1: her mental health. In twenty eighteen, Gomez had an episode
Speaker 1: of psychosis, a condition in which a person experiences a
Speaker 1: break from reality, and later learned she had bipolar disorder.
Speaker 1: The actress decided to take a hiatus from her career
Speaker 1: and retreated from the spotlight. She explored different treatments, including
Speaker 1: a dialectical behavior therapy, a form of talk therapy for
Speaker 1: patients experiencing intense emotional distress, eventually landing on a set
Speaker 1: of strategies and a treatment plan that worked for her.
Speaker 1: It was really intense for a while, Gomez thirty two says,
Speaker 1: it's not easy, but luckily I'm in a much healthier
Speaker 1: mindset and I just try not to pay attention to
Speaker 1: any noise. As her career took off again with critically
Speaker 1: acclaimed roles in Only Murders in the Building, produced by Hulu,
Speaker 1: which shares apparent company with National Geographic in the recent
Speaker 1: musical film Emelia Perez. She felt compelled to share her
Speaker 1: experience in a way that could help others. She did
Speaker 1: this most intimately Lee through the twenty twenty two documentary
Speaker 1: Selena Gomez, My Mind and Me. I was terrified, she
Speaker 1: says of the project. But I didn't want anyone else
Speaker 1: to control the narrative of my experience. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to take control of that and be honest. That always
Speaker 1: seemed to be my go to. She also directed profits
Speaker 1: from her cosmetics company, Rare Beauty to create the Rare
Speaker 1: Impact Fund, a nonprofit that provides mental health resources for
Speaker 1: young people around the world. I love what I do
Speaker 1: more than anything, but to have a purpose behind a
Speaker 1: cosmetics brand is very important, she says. I wanted other
Speaker 1: people to feel like I wasn't some unattainable thing that
Speaker 1: no one could really relate to. Since launching in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Rare Impact has contributed millions of dollars across thirty organizations
Speaker 1: on five continents. Eighteen groups focused on education, crisis response,
Speaker 1: and suicide prevention Recipients include the Ever Forward Club in Oakland, California,
Speaker 1: which supports at risk young men, and Kolkata Sanved, which
Speaker 1: uses dance movement therapy as a form of rehabilitation for
Speaker 1: vulnerable children in India and across South Asia. Elise Cohen,
Speaker 1: Rare Impacts president, points out that by raising awareness about
Speaker 1: these issues, Gomez is also tackling the consistent challenge of
Speaker 1: how to raise funds for solutions. People who haven't personally
Speaker 1: experienced mental health struggles may now better understand the need
Speaker 1: to invest. For her part, Gomez says she just wants
Speaker 1: people to know there is help available, support that can
Speaker 1: be as private or public as they want. I still
Speaker 1: don't have it all figured out, she says. Once I
Speaker 1: started having a relationship with my emotions, it helped. This
Speaker 1: article by Alexis Okyowo next Oksana Masters, the multi sport
Speaker 1: athlete challenging us to rethink what's possible. Six toes on
Speaker 1: each foot, five webbed fingers on each hand, no thumbs,
Speaker 1: and no tibi. Born with congenital deformities in Ukraine in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, three years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,
Speaker 1: Oksana Masters lived at an orphanage until she was nearly eight.
Speaker 1: Once adopted, she came to the United States, where her
Speaker 1: legs were amputated and she endured painful reconstructive surgeries. Now
Speaker 1: thirty five, she has competed in seven consecutive Paralympics, every
Speaker 1: Winter and Summer Games since twenty twelve, earning nineteen medals
Speaker 1: in hand cycling, rowing, skiing, and biathlon. She models what's
Speaker 1: possible and normalizes the idea that we're all unique through
Speaker 1: Sisters in Sports, a nonprofit that brings together young girls
Speaker 1: and women with disabilities. If one of those competitors eventually
Speaker 1: ends up beating Masters, she'll be the first to congratulate her.
Speaker 1: I want those women to take that torch and carry
Speaker 1: it past me, she says. Just thinking about it gives
Speaker 1: her goosebumps. By Christine Phantasy Next Taishan Hayden Smith, the
Speaker 1: Gorilla Gardener, bringing horticulture to a new generation. When Tashon
Speaker 1: Hayden Smith was growing up in London public housing, he
Speaker 1: dreamed of becoming a soccer star. His family's small garden
Speaker 1: became his pitch, inspiring a pro career. After the Grenfeld
Speaker 1: Tower fire devastated the same community. In twenty seventeen, he
Speaker 1: returned home and began rehabbing urban parcels into green spaces.
Speaker 1: He founded Grow to Know, which makes nature more accessible
Speaker 1: to everyone while educating a diverse new generation of gardeners.
Speaker 1: In the garden, boundaries and barriers come down, says Hayden Smith,
Speaker 1: who's doing his part to make blighted neighborhoods bloom again.
Speaker 1: By Alex Hoyt. Emily Liman, The scientist deepening our understanding
Speaker 1: of human senses. Emily Leman is raising the question of
Speaker 1: whether there are more than just five basic tastes. An
Speaker 1: expert in human perception, She's revealed a class of proteins
Speaker 1: that detect both acids and ammonium chloride, the ingredient that
Speaker 1: gives Nordic salt licorice. It's astrndent favor flavor. The work
Speaker 1: holds potential health benefits with new insight on otopetrons, compounds
Speaker 1: that have been linked to colon cancer. Whenever we find
Speaker 1: a molecule in the body that has sort of a
Speaker 1: new function, Lehmann says, we can better understand how our
Speaker 1: body works and how we can manipulate it. By Lauren
Speaker 1: Vespoli Jason Momoa, the actor using his superpowers to protect
Speaker 1: our oceans long before he played Aquaman, rightful heir to
Speaker 1: the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. Actor Jason Momoa was an
Speaker 1: aqua boy. Born in Hawaii, Momoa spent much of his
Speaker 1: childhood in smalltown, Iowa, where he lived with his mother.
Speaker 1: But even landlocked, he was extremely invested in aquatic ecosystems,
Speaker 1: spending his high school years taking college level marine biology classes.
Speaker 1: We had all these up aquariums, Momoa forty five says, animatedly,
Speaker 1: recalling the campuses, eels and sharks. That's where it all started.
Speaker 1: I was in marine biology in Iowa. After high school.
Speaker 1: He was cast in bay Watch at nineteen, not an
Speaker 1: obvious avenue toward a marine biology career, but a move
Speaker 1: that was ocean adjacent. Nonetheless, a new trajectory opened up,
Speaker 1: and with Rowells in Game of Thrones, Doune, and of
Speaker 1: course Aquaman, he became a Hollywood star. Mamoa's love of
Speaker 1: the ocean persists in these days. He sees himself as
Speaker 1: a megaphone for experts whose voices don't carry quite as
Speaker 1: far as his. In twenty twenty two, he linked up
Speaker 1: with the un Environment Program, becoming its advocate for Life
Speaker 1: below Water. Not long ago, Frustrated by all the plastic
Speaker 1: water bottles Mamoa saw on plains, he started an aluminum
Speaker 1: water bottle company manan Na Lo Lola, which means which
Speaker 1: moves that include a partnership with reusable water bottomling system Boomerang.
Speaker 1: Mimoa is always chasing sustainability. I'm trying to make a change,
Speaker 1: he says, and I'm trying to be accountable by Lauren Larsen.
Speaker 1: Next Jennifer Uchendu, the climate activist creating spaces for Africans
Speaker 1: to process their echo anxiety. For years, Jennifer Uchendo had
Speaker 1: been warning fellow Nigerians about the imminent dangers of climate
Speaker 1: change without realizing that a related issue had escaped her attention.
Speaker 1: Simply put, she felt increasingly anxious and overwhelmed. Residents of
Speaker 1: the global South experienced some of the most dramatic effects
Speaker 1: of climate change flooded cities, drought stricken farmland, excruciating heat waves,
Speaker 1: often without contributing significantly to the problem themselves. For Uchendu,
Speaker 1: who was acting as a sustainability consultant in local communities
Speaker 1: and had launched a blog susty vibes to help young
Speaker 1: people reduce their carbon footprint and encourage more accountability among others.
Speaker 1: It felt like she couldn't make a difference fast enough.
Speaker 1: International leaders certainly didn't seem to be taking the check
Speaker 1: challenges that her community faced seriously. I came from a
Speaker 1: place of anger and frustration, she says. I felt like
Speaker 1: I either do the hard work of exploring these emotions
Speaker 1: or I completely give up and do something else. Then
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty Uchandu had an idea. She started a
Speaker 1: project to validate and explore emotional responses to climate change
Speaker 1: for her community. The Echo Anxiety in Africa Project or TEAP,
Speaker 1: is a Lagos based organization that helps young Africans meet
Speaker 1: and talk about the emotions they are feeling around climate change.
Speaker 1: Two years ago, TAP launched a cafe in its office,
Speaker 1: offering a gathering space for its members. Tiap's leaders want
Speaker 1: to inspire a sense of empowerment among the more than
Speaker 1: seven hundred people who've joined the project, whether the goal
Speaker 1: is to plant more trees or lower an electricity bill.
Speaker 1: Conversations among members often explore intersecting hardships in Nigeria. Even
Speaker 1: though we've come together because of climate change. It's not
Speaker 1: out of place when some one talks about unemployment or
Speaker 1: the high prices of food, because we see that these
Speaker 1: are the broader impacts of the problem. Uchendu says. She's
Speaker 1: since expanded TEA up to several more states in Nigeria,
Speaker 1: and she plans to train organizers to create similar spaces
Speaker 1: in South Africa, Ghana and Kenya. Meanwhile, she's conducting research
Speaker 1: with the University of Nottingham in England about the emotional
Speaker 1: impact of climate change for urban residence in large African cities,
Speaker 1: which may raise awareness of the problem. More broadly. As
Speaker 1: Uchendu sees it, providing a venue for young Africans to
Speaker 1: talk about their egoss anxiety is an essential step in
Speaker 1: continuing the fight for a better future. If young people
Speaker 1: feel completely powerless and crippled, it's not just a public
Speaker 1: health crisis, but a disaster for climate change. She says,
Speaker 1: you have to have the energy to do something. That's
Speaker 1: another valuable resource to protect. By Charlie Locke. Next, hamdi Ulukaya,
Speaker 1: the business leader matching refugees with good jobs. The son
Speaker 1: of Kurdish sheep farmers, hamdi Ulukaya fled his native Turkey
Speaker 1: after being targeted for supporting the rights of fellow Kurds.
Speaker 1: While founding Chobani, the Greek yogurt company in Upstate New York,
Speaker 1: he often thought about others fleeing persecution and began hiring
Speaker 1: from a nearby refugee settlement center. He has since created
Speaker 1: the Tent Partnership for Refugees, a nonprofit that has helped
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of displaced people find jobs around the world,
Speaker 1: including with Airbnb, MasterCard, Ups, and Ikea. Chobani now employs
Speaker 1: a work force that speaks more than twenty languages. Our
Speaker 1: pitch is that you're not going to find more loyal,
Speaker 1: hard working, and determined people to work for your company,
Speaker 1: He says, They'll never forget that you open the door
Speaker 1: for them. Next Edward Norton, the actor, imagining a new
Speaker 1: way to conserve African wildlife. From an early age, Edward
Speaker 1: Norton was given an education in what protecting the environment
Speaker 1: really requires. His father, Edward M. Norton, an environmental litigator,
Speaker 1: founded the Grand Canyon Trust and co founded the Rails
Speaker 1: to Trail's Conservancy. Norton's maternal grandfather, the real estate developer
Speaker 1: and urban planner James Rouse was a pioneer in low
Speaker 1: income housing policy. I just grew up listening to people
Speaker 1: talking about social entrepreneurship, mission driven strategy and fundraising. Norton
Speaker 1: fifty five explains, everyone around me was always on the stump,
Speaker 1: nobly trying to raise money. I certainly cannot remember a
Speaker 1: time my dad wasn't raising money for environmental organizations. Norton
Speaker 1: built his own career in a different field, writing his
Speaker 1: works in films like American History, ex Fight Club, and
Speaker 1: Twenty fifth Hour to a perch as one of his
Speaker 1: generation's best regarded actors. Most recently, he played social justice
Speaker 1: legend Pete Seeger to Timide Challemet's hunchy young Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: in A Complete Unknown. When Norton first became famous, he
Speaker 1: concluded that he wasn't interested in garden variety celebrity ambassador work.
Speaker 1: One thing I've always had a very very sharp sense
Speaker 1: of is that I'm not interested in accessorizing or being
Speaker 1: some weak sauce kind of articulator. He says, I'm not
Speaker 1: interested in what I would call the soft mission of
Speaker 1: being a public advocate. It's not that I don't believe
Speaker 1: those things are important, but that held no nourishment for me.
Speaker 1: What does nourish Norton, he says, is his work with
Speaker 1: a Kenya based organization called the Mahasi Wilderness Conservation Trust. Norton,
Speaker 1: who serves as president of the group's US board, describes
Speaker 1: it as an economic development first organization, figuring out how
Speaker 1: to create preferential economics out of natural resources for communities,
Speaker 1: which is another way of saying that the Trust is
Speaker 1: dedicated to thinking creatively about ways to tie ma Asai
Speaker 1: of efforts of protecting their land and the wildlife there
Speaker 1: to economic development. The group does plenty of the things
Speaker 1: you might expect from a Kenyon conservacy. We run over
Speaker 1: two hundred twenty community rangers, wildlife enforcement, biodiversity monitoring, all
Speaker 1: of that stuff, Norton says, But the Trust, he explains,
Speaker 1: is a receptacle for bolder ideas too. One project he's
Speaker 1: particularly proud of funnel's revenue from the sale of carbon
Speaker 1: offsets to local Masai communities, who use that money to
Speaker 1: support health, education and conservation initiatives. The sizeable concern that
Speaker 1: preoccupies Norton would be familiar to his father and grandfather.
Speaker 1: What he refers to as the white knuckle experience of
Speaker 1: raising funds. This led Norton to a realization, we can't
Speaker 1: have the global conservation movement remain a donor funded philanthropic strategy.
Speaker 1: He says, it just can't. It not only can't scale,
Speaker 1: it fundamentally is too unstable. A new model is needed
Speaker 1: in Norton gets especially energized when discussing what he thinks
Speaker 1: it will be a reimagining of the luxury ecotourism model
Speaker 1: to better support conservation efforts. The way Norton and his
Speaker 1: partners see it, tourist dollars being spent in fragile places
Speaker 1: ought to remain in country, or, better yet, in community.
Speaker 1: Norton and his team started a company called Conservation Equity
Speaker 1: that will invest in tourism in critical places, but crucially,
Speaker 1: will reinvest its profits locally rather than delivering returns to shareholders.
Speaker 1: Norton is bullish on the model's prospects. I think what
Speaker 1: we are doing has no precedent, he says. If we
Speaker 1: get it right, I would argue we'll have contributed a
Speaker 1: big new idea about how conservation can be financed and
Speaker 1: incentivized and economically structured globally. I think We're on the
Speaker 1: cusp of demonstrating how powerful tourism could actually be if
Speaker 1: the mission driven world can come up with a model
Speaker 1: to compete against private equity capital. Norton thinks we're at
Speaker 1: a pivotal moment where the mechanism of conservation can be reinvented.
Speaker 1: We are in the era of the economics of nature.
Speaker 1: We're forcing ourselves to accurately account for nature within our
Speaker 1: economic system. He says it may not be as romantic
Speaker 1: as John Moore, but I think it's got to be
Speaker 1: acknowledged that the needs of eight billion people are not
Speaker 1: going to take second tier priority to the spiritual value
Speaker 1: of nature. They're just not. If you cannot deliver a
Speaker 1: more resilient and superior economic outcome from stewardship and restorative
Speaker 1: stewardship of nature, you lose, And Norton isn't particularly interested
Speaker 1: in losing. By Sam Shubey next Cole Brower, the Fearless
Speaker 1: Sailor bringing her sport to a new group of fans.
Speaker 1: Cole Brower didn't grow up going to a yacht club.
Speaker 1: It was only at a college student living in Honolulu
Speaker 1: that the idea hit. I just googled sailing Hawaii, says Brauer,
Speaker 1: now thirty, of her casual introduction to the sport that
Speaker 1: changed her life. Last year, a decade after that start,
Speaker 1: Brauer became the first American woman to sail solo, NonStop
Speaker 1: and unassisted around the world. When she set out, Brauer
Speaker 1: had about ten thousand Instagram followers, eighty five percent of
Speaker 1: whom were men, pretty standard for a male dominated sport.
Speaker 1: After one hundred thirty days at sea, she had roughly
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand followers, and the demographics had shifted. Half
Speaker 1: her audience was now female. Inspiring others matters to Brauer,
Speaker 1: who wants to demonstrate what's possible for women and for
Speaker 1: people who didn't grow up around yachts. By Eva Holland
Speaker 1: Next Sana Javari Kadri, the entrepreneur inspiring a more sustainable
Speaker 1: and ethical spice trade. Sana Javari Kadri's radical quest to
Speaker 1: disrupt the global spice industry started with one small action.
Speaker 1: She took an aim at golden milk lattes. Nearly a
Speaker 1: decade ago and twenty sixteen, Javeri Cadri was working in
Speaker 1: marketing for a large San Francisco grocery store when she
Speaker 1: noticed the fad sweeping America's coffee shops. She knew the
Speaker 1: drink's key ingredient, Howard. Turmeric, grew mostly in her native India,
Speaker 1: but unlike existing varieties of farm to table coffee, chocolate,
Speaker 1: or fruit, there was little visibility in to the supply chain.
Speaker 1: When she returned to Mumbai early the following year, Javeri
Speaker 1: Kadri investigated and realized two things. Some regenerative farmers in
Speaker 1: India used distinct growing and processing techniques that resulted in
Speaker 1: varieties far superior to anything she'd seen across Mumbai in California,
Speaker 1: and yet no farmers seemed to be profiting from tumeric's
Speaker 1: newfound vogue among wellness seekers. So she decided to reinvent
Speaker 1: the supply chain. That naivete meant that we built something
Speaker 1: from scratch and made something possible that previously didn't seem possible,
Speaker 1: she says. The global spice trade is rooted in more
Speaker 1: than five hundred years of colonialism, marked by long supply chains,
Speaker 1: little transparency, and farmers paid a pittance for their labor.
Speaker 1: Spices often sit in transit between grower and grocery for years,
Speaker 1: losing potency in the process. So Javeri Kadri invested the
Speaker 1: only money she had about three thousand dollars from her
Speaker 1: tax refund, to buy the freshest tumeric she could find
Speaker 1: and bring it to California. I was hand packing it
Speaker 1: in my basement and then selling it on the internet,
Speaker 1: she remembers. Thanks to a knack for Instagram marketing in
Speaker 1: a few key contacts in the food world, the business
Speaker 1: took off. Today, Javeri Cadre's Diaspora Company offers forty one spices,
Speaker 1: including black peppercorn and cardamen and spice blends sourced from
Speaker 1: India and Sri Lanka. Unlike conventional spice companies, Diaspora deals
Speaker 1: directly with more than one hundred fifty farms, reaching thousands
Speaker 1: of farm workers, while paying them on average four times
Speaker 1: the commodity price for the organic spices they grow. Fair
Speaker 1: Trade International, by comparison, pays just fifteen percent above market.
Speaker 1: The high quality product allows the company to charge a premium,
Speaker 1: which has led to more investment in its farm partners.
Speaker 1: To Veri Kadri is continuing to offer customers an unmatched
Speaker 1: level of transparency, sharing the farms on which each spice
Speaker 1: is grown, as well as harvest dates and contract prices.
Speaker 1: Because we're sourcing from South Asia, I think there's a
Speaker 1: very problematic assumption that it should be cheap. She says.
Speaker 1: That's basically the effects of colonialism and racism, where we're
Speaker 1: devaluing this labor and we're devaluing the worth of this product. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the company recently expanded into whole foods and wholesale distribution.
Speaker 1: There's a difference you can taste by Elizabeth Dunn. Next,
Speaker 1: Ivan Aki Sawyer and Eugenia Kargbo. The local leader, is
Speaker 1: saving their city from a climate emergency. A decade aga,
Speaker 1: just as Sierra Leon's Ebola epidemic was ending, Yvonne Aki
Speaker 1: Sawyer saw the effects of another catastrophe. The tropical rainforests
Speaker 1: encircling the country's capital, Freetown, had been cut down for
Speaker 1: housing and fuel. I just suddenly noticed the level of deforestation,
Speaker 1: she says. I literally parked my car and wept. Today,
Speaker 1: temperatures there routinely exceed a hundred degrees fahrenheit, accompanied by
Speaker 1: deadly floods and landslides during the rainy season, including a
Speaker 1: mudslide in twenty seventeen that killed more than a thousand people.
Speaker 1: One of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world,
Speaker 1: Sierra Leone is also one of the poorest, severely restricting
Speaker 1: its ability to adapt to a crisis primarily caused by
Speaker 1: wealthy nations burning fossil fuels. If that sounds bleak, Aqi Sawyer,
Speaker 1: who campaigned against the blood diamond trade and co founded
Speaker 1: a charity that helped women and children displaced by the
Speaker 1: country's civil war before being elected as Freetown's mayor in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, offers another way of thinking. Things that aren't
Speaker 1: right don't need to stay that way, she says. Born
Speaker 1: in Freetown, she had a career in finance and property
Speaker 1: development in London, but returned to direct a national response
Speaker 1: to the Ebola outbreak. As mayor, one of her most
Speaker 1: important initiatives was appointing Africa's first Chief Heat Officer, Eugenia Cargbo,
Speaker 1: to help Freetown's citizens adapt to increasingly extreme temperatures. In
Speaker 1: the role, Carbo has built canopies to shade women selling
Speaker 1: goods at the city's open air markets. She is also
Speaker 1: experimenting with heat resistant materials to protect those residing in
Speaker 1: shelters made from corrugated metal. Many of the people living
Speaker 1: in these communities suffer from both outdoor and indoor heat.
Speaker 1: Carbo says, there's so much more to do, but one
Speaker 1: of the major problems that we have is funding. Despite
Speaker 1: those challenges, city leaders have made progress replenishing the forests
Speaker 1: that were once lost. Over the past five years, the
Speaker 1: community he has planted more than one point two million trees,
Speaker 1: eighty two percent of which have survived, for a project
Speaker 1: known as Freetown the Tree Town. The foliage offers more
Speaker 1: shade to elders, and the roots safeguard neighborhoods from mud size.
Speaker 1: Acqui Sawyer recalls a tradition that was once common in
Speaker 1: her country. A newborn's umbilical cord was buried with a
Speaker 1: freshly planted tree, symbolically tying each person to the land.
Speaker 1: She believes in the power of customs that connect us
Speaker 1: to our world, and she's hoping future generations can rediscover them.
Speaker 1: By R. L. Samuelson. This concludes readings from National Geographic
Speaker 1: Magazine for today. Your reader has been Marcia. If you
Speaker 1: have enjoyed hearing this content, please give us a call
Speaker 1: at eight five nine four two two six three nine zero.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and have a great day