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.

Village chief Issa Ousmane Tcharaba with elders of Barkadroussou in Kanem province, Chad. The Great Green Wall initiative helped stop the dunes from swamping their oasis

Is the Great Green Wall a mirage of hope?

Nov 20, 2025
The Great Green Wall was meant to reshape the Sahel. But as drought, bureaucracy and fading funds take their toll, its legacy is uneven
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.
How tourists take the lead in Faroe Islands’ volunteer project

How tourists take the lead in Faroe Islands’ volunteer project

Sep 6, 2024
Stuart Butler travels to the Faroe Islands to see a unique project where the tourists are doing the hard work.
Plastic pollution

Big reduction in plastic bags washed up onto UK’s beaches

Aug 9, 2024
There's been an 80 per cent drop in number of plastic bags washed up onto UK's beaches, but other forms of plastic pollution have increased.
Wildflowers

Road verges could help increase biodiversity in the UK

Aug 8, 2024
The nature depleted UK should use its miles of road verges as wildlife corridors to help increase biodiversity
Indochinese tiger

Indochinese tiger population increases

Aug 6, 2024
A new study reveals that Thailand's population of endangered Indochinese tigers is increasing at a steady pace.
Ladakh

Frozen desert too hot for aeroplanes to take-off

Aug 1, 2024
Alarm in the 'frozen desert' of Ladakh where a heat wave is making it too hot for aeroplanes to land or take-off.
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