Guardians of Life: A Photo Journey Through Indigenous Stewardship

When you flip open Guardians of Life: Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Science, and Restoring the Planet, the first thing you notice is the sheer size of the pages—big enough to make the photographs feel almost tactile, as if you could reach out and touch the ice, the smoke, the river water.

The book is the brain‑child of National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyan, a person of East Asian Indigenous and Chinese heritage, who spent months living among nine different Indigenous communities. He doesn’t just snap pictures from a distance; he becomes part of the daily rhythm, sharing meals, listening to stories, and learning the subtle ways people relate to the land.

Adding depth to Yuyan’s visual storytelling are essays by writer Charles C. Mann and others, plus a heartfelt foreword by Quannah Chasinghorse, a Gwich’in model and activist from Eagle Village, Alaska. Chasinghorse reminds us that Indigenous lives are woven into the very fabric of nature, not apart from it.

The opening chapter grew out of a National Geographic article about Inupiat whaling in Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow). Yuyan’s images capture the stark beauty of the whaling camps, the solemnity of the hunt, the communal division of a massive bowhead, and the jubilant Nalukataq festival. Some shots feel almost abstract—a close‑up of a baleen plate, a polar bear perched against a whale’s jawbone—while others, taken from the sky, juxtapose modern cabins with ancient sea‑ice routes.

What makes the Alaska story resonate is its narrative of reclamation. After an international ban on bowhead hunting in 1977, the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission—run by Inupiat elders—negotiated a quota system that respects subsistence needs and allows the whale population to rebound. The result? Numbers have more than tripled, proving that Indigenous knowledge and self‑determination can rewrite policy outcomes.

Every chapter follows a similar pattern: portrait, quote, and a glimpse into a specific stewardship project. In Australia, Indigenous rangers practice “cultural fire” in the northeast forests. By deliberately setting low‑intensity burns, they clear dead underbrush that would otherwise fuel devastating wildfires and create a patchwork of habitats that supports a richer array of native species. Yuyan captures a ranger standing beside a still‑glowing fire, smoke curling like an old story rising from the earth.

Traveling west to North America, the book spotlights the Klamath River restoration in California and Oregon. Here, the Klamath, Karuk, Yurok, Hoopa, and Shasta peoples led a massive dam‑removal effort that cost half a billion dollars but reopened 400 miles of river for salmon and steelhead. The images show gleaming river water where once concrete towers loomed, and the faces of Indigenous activists who have spent a lifetime fighting for that moment.

Other chapters whisk readers to Palau’s marine sanctuaries, Ecuador’s cloud‑forest reforestation, Mongolia’s steppe‑grassland revival, and the reclamation of ancestral lands in Alberta, Montana, and Vancouver Island. Each story is accompanied by a short, powerful quote from community elders—voices that anchor the photographs in lived experience.

It’s worth noting that the book leans heavily toward optimism. Setbacks, political push‑back, and ongoing climate threats receive only brief mentions. The intention seems clear: to inspire, to celebrate, and perhaps to nudge policymakers toward listening more closely to Indigenous expertise.

Overall, Guardians of Life feels like a love letter to the planet written in both visual and textual language. It reminds us that the people who have tended these lands for millennia still hold the keys to their future—if we’re willing to hand them the respect and authority they deserve.