Geographical

Official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)

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Stuart Butler

Stuart Butler is a journalist and photographer specialising in conservation, the environment and hiking.

He spends a great deal of time travelling in the Himalaya, East Africa and southwest Europe. He has worked with some of the world’s biggest media groups, and has contributed to over a hundred travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet and Rough Guide as well as a number of specialist hiking and wildlife-watching guide books.

Stuart also works with the UN award-winning Nashulai Maasai Conservancy (nashulai.com) and Nashulai Journeys in Kenya.

Stuart lives with his family at the foot of the Pyrenees in southwest France.

Monarch butterflies in air

The flight risk of monarch butterflies

Jun 30, 2026
Every autumn, millions of monarch butterflies set off on a 4,800-kilometre journey to Mexico. But the forests and wildflower corridors that sustain them are changing rapidly – and the migration may be running out of time
The Great Rift Valley runs through Ethiopia

Country profile: Ethiopia

May 18, 2026
From the churches of Lalibela to the battlefields of Tigray and Amhara, Ethiopia’s ancient myths, faith and political fractures are colliding in a crisis that is testing whether one of Africa’s oldest states can hold together
Many of us think of chimpanzees as playful, gentle creatures, but in certain Ugandan forests, the reality is rather different. This chimpanzee was photographed in Bugoma Forest

A cry from the forest: chimps in Uganda

Apr 8, 2026
Shrinking forests are fuelling fear, anger and hard choices in Uganda as human-wildlife conflict rages on
Britain hedgerows

Britain’s hedgerows: the neglected network that holds us together

Feb 20, 2026
Some of Britain’s hedgerows are older than the Pyramids. From Dartmoor’s Bronze Age ‘reaves’ to our modern-day field boundaries, they still shape wildlife, farming and the countryside today
Drowning lands and hungry tigers in the Sundarbans

Drowning lands and hungry tigers in the Sundarbans

Jan 14, 2026
Rising seas are eating away at the Sundarbans – and pushing its tigers ever closer to human settlements
The Greenland ice sheet is losing a staggering 30 million tonnes of ice every hour of every day

Greenland: teetering on the edge

Jan 6, 2026
Journey across ice, tundra and fjord to see how the world’s largest island is changing – and what its future might mean for us all
How Copenhagen has become the world’s leading green city ?

How Copenhagen has become the world’s leading green city ?

Sep 10, 2025

From kayak clean-ups to rooftop farms and zero-carbon buses, Copenhagen is raising the bar for urban sustainability — both literally…

Monks celebrate a Buddhist festival at a monastery in the Bumthang Valley, the spiritual heartland of Bhutan

Bhutan: a kingdom built on happiness

Aug 21, 2025

Enshrined in national policy and rooted in Buddhist belief, Gross National Happiness has shaped Bhutan’s path for decades. But in…

A woman sits outside the ruins of houses destroyed in Cairo’s historic City of the Dead

Living among the graves: Cairo’s City of the Dead faces an uncertain future

Jul 3, 2025
 In Cairo’s City of the Dead, where homes are mausoleums and communities have grown among the graves, residents speak out against the destruction of their lives and heritage – and the silence that surrounds it 
Injured civilian being carried following aerial bombardments by Myanmar's military in Singu Township in central Mandalay Region on 14 March 2025

Myanmar: a country at war with itself

Apr 23, 2025
In the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, Stuart Butler reports on a country torn apart by brutal civil war
A man paddles his water taxi down the Buriganga River, which flows through the heart of Dhaka

Turning the tide on Bangladesh’s plastic pollution

Mar 26, 2025
Can Bangladesh’s new government save the rivers on which the country depends?
Aerial view of the Pyranees

The fantastical peaks that separate France and Spain

Oct 19, 2024
Stuart Butler on why he's charmed by the rugged diversity of the Pyrenees – and the best places to explore there.
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