In 1977, the International Whaling Commission banned the Iñupiat from hunting bowhead whales, a practice thousands of years old. The Iñupiat fought back in court, won the right to manage bowheads, and tripled the whale population in thirty years. Indigenous territories comprise thirty-seven percent of all remaining natural lands, reports Guardians of Life, and contain about eighty percent of the species on earth. National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan has created a book-length argument for entrusting Indigenous peoples with maintaining this environmental stewardship, and I’m convinced. His nearly two hundred images from nine Native communities around the globe show humans intimately connected to their traditional lands and acutely dependent on the health of everything living there. Facts are powerful; Yüyan’s photos are more so.