Kira Walker
@kira-walker.bsky.social
Writer & photographer chasing light, birds, beauty & awe. Amor Mundi on Substack ✨🌿🕊️
https://kira-walker.com
https://kira-walker.com
Reposted by Kira Walker
Ghosts of the Little Smoky
What do we lose when the caribou vanish?
kiraw.substack.com
December 1, 2025 at 4:17 PM
We’d be wise to heed the signals the caribou—and the land—are sending us, lest these creatures who have roamed Earth for over a million years, surviving the Ice Age, the assaults of colonization and over a century of industrial extraction, soon vanish into ghosts kiraw.substack.com/p/ghosts-of-...
Ghosts of the Little Smoky
What do we lose when the caribou vanish?
kiraw.substack.com
November 28, 2025 at 10:45 AM
We’d be wise to heed the signals the caribou—and the land—are sending us, lest these creatures who have roamed Earth for over a million years, surviving the Ice Age, the assaults of colonization and over a century of industrial extraction, soon vanish into ghosts kiraw.substack.com/p/ghosts-of-...
Some of my most cherished memories involve cities, but oh do I feel this: "Chronic stress and many modern health issues are the result of an evolutionary mismatch between our primarily nature-adapted biology and the industrialized environments we now inhabit."
phys.org/news/2025-11...
phys.org/news/2025-11...
Humans are evolved for nature, not cities, say anthropologists
A new paper by evolutionary anthropologists Colin Shaw (University of Zurich) and Daniel Longman (Loughborough University) argues that modern life has outpaced human evolution. The study suggests that...
phys.org
November 22, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Some of my most cherished memories involve cities, but oh do I feel this: "Chronic stress and many modern health issues are the result of an evolutionary mismatch between our primarily nature-adapted biology and the industrialized environments we now inhabit."
phys.org/news/2025-11...
phys.org/news/2025-11...
Reposted by Kira Walker
“And its song, my freight.”
‘Prayer for When I’m Lost’ by Patrick Rosal, in Orion’s Autumn 2025 issue
orionmagazine.org/article/pray...
‘Prayer for When I’m Lost’ by Patrick Rosal, in Orion’s Autumn 2025 issue
orionmagazine.org/article/pray...
November 8, 2025 at 4:20 PM
“And its song, my freight.”
‘Prayer for When I’m Lost’ by Patrick Rosal, in Orion’s Autumn 2025 issue
orionmagazine.org/article/pray...
‘Prayer for When I’m Lost’ by Patrick Rosal, in Orion’s Autumn 2025 issue
orionmagazine.org/article/pray...
"There is so much we can do when our hearts can’t take it anymore."
What a wonderful, rich conversation between @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and @julianhoffman.bsky.social
What a wonderful, rich conversation between @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and @julianhoffman.bsky.social
Deeply grateful to @orionmagazine.bsky.social for giving @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and myself the opportunity to have a conversation about borders, belonging, writing, rivers, grief and resistance, as well as our shared love for the more-than-human world.
orionmagazine.org/article/hear...
orionmagazine.org/article/hear...
Heart’s Home - Orion Magazine
A conversation about borders, belonging, and keeping the Kushners out
orionmagazine.org
November 7, 2025 at 2:51 PM
"There is so much we can do when our hearts can’t take it anymore."
What a wonderful, rich conversation between @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and @julianhoffman.bsky.social
What a wonderful, rich conversation between @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and @julianhoffman.bsky.social
'Though the specificities of colonization are unique to each location, what is consistent about colonialism is that it “has operated and continues to operate through the disruption and re-ordering of relations between humans, land and lively beings.”'
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-gaze-o...
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-gaze-o...
The gaze of a bison
From North America to Palestine, “the horror of settler colonization has always been a multispecies endeavour”
kiraw.substack.com
October 30, 2025 at 9:44 AM
'Though the specificities of colonization are unique to each location, what is consistent about colonialism is that it “has operated and continues to operate through the disruption and re-ordering of relations between humans, land and lively beings.”'
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-gaze-o...
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-gaze-o...
Bird lovers and bird-friendly people: please join me in helping support birders of Gaza and their families as they try to survive genocide and ethnic cleansing, while still encouraging their love for birding.
birdersofpalestine.com
birdersofpalestine.com
Birders of Palestine
Support the birdwatchers of Gaza. Prints and postcards taken by Palestinian birders.
birdersofpalestine.com
September 6, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Bird lovers and bird-friendly people: please join me in helping support birders of Gaza and their families as they try to survive genocide and ethnic cleansing, while still encouraging their love for birding.
birdersofpalestine.com
birdersofpalestine.com
"If this level of horror can be written about, recorded, Tweeted, livestreamed, and broadcast by journalists in Gaza, only to be ignored by politicians and journalists in the West, then what is the point of journalism?"
lithub.com/how-do-we-te...
lithub.com/how-do-we-te...
How Do We Tell the Story of Gaza’s Murdered Journalists?
Since October 2023, I have been closely following the most outstanding cohort of journalists in the world: the mighty but dwindling community of journalists in Gaza. For about a year, I attended p…
lithub.com
August 20, 2025 at 11:04 PM
"If this level of horror can be written about, recorded, Tweeted, livestreamed, and broadcast by journalists in Gaza, only to be ignored by politicians and journalists in the West, then what is the point of journalism?"
lithub.com/how-do-we-te...
lithub.com/how-do-we-te...
Reposted by Kira Walker
I wrote about the Prespa lakes region in northern Greece for @theguardian.com today. At the crossroads of three countries and my home for the past quarter of a century, it's a place that continues to surprise me with its wild beauty and rich human cultures.
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...
Balkan bounty: the little-known corner of Greece now ripe for walkers and nature tourism
Mountains, butterflies, bears and pelicans are among the natural wonders in the stunning Prespa lakes region, which straddles three countries
www.theguardian.com
August 6, 2025 at 10:08 AM
I wrote about the Prespa lakes region in northern Greece for @theguardian.com today. At the crossroads of three countries and my home for the past quarter of a century, it's a place that continues to surprise me with its wild beauty and rich human cultures.
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...
One year after wildfire devastated Jasper, Canada, a reflection on one of the defining emotions of our time: solastalgia.
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-ashes...
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-ashes...
When ashes paint the sky
Solastalgia and grief in an era scorched by flames
kiraw.substack.com
July 22, 2025 at 1:47 PM
One year after wildfire devastated Jasper, Canada, a reflection on one of the defining emotions of our time: solastalgia.
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-ashes...
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-ashes...
Ever since I first visited, I’d felt haunted by how somewhere so precious, so rich in life, could be so recklessly destroyed. I’d returned because I wanted to see the landscape when it was flooded. To imagine how Doñana was, and maybe still could be, in all its lush, watery, bird-rich glory.
A wetland without water
How greed, excess and the failure to love imperilled one of Europe's ecological treasures
kiraw.substack.com
July 1, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Ever since I first visited, I’d felt haunted by how somewhere so precious, so rich in life, could be so recklessly destroyed. I’d returned because I wanted to see the landscape when it was flooded. To imagine how Doñana was, and maybe still could be, in all its lush, watery, bird-rich glory.
"Stopping threats is not enough. As many as 250-350 species will require complementary conservation measures … to survive the next century.”
‘Extinction crisis’ could see 500 bird species vanish within a century – report
Researchers say urgent conservation efforts will be needed to mitigate the ‘shocking statistic’ that threatens to unravel ecosystems
www.theguardian.com
June 28, 2025 at 9:02 PM
"Stopping threats is not enough. As many as 250-350 species will require complementary conservation measures … to survive the next century.”
Essential piece by the great Suzy Hansen.
"A society still conducting this kind of manmade technological violence after many decades of knowing exactly the suffering it causes to innocent people must believe in these weapons much more than in life itself."
nymag.com/intelligence...
"A society still conducting this kind of manmade technological violence after many decades of knowing exactly the suffering it causes to innocent people must believe in these weapons much more than in life itself."
nymag.com/intelligence...
Israel’s Crimes of the Century
How Israel, with the help of the U.S., broke not only Gaza but the foundations of humanitarian law.
nymag.com
June 25, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Essential piece by the great Suzy Hansen.
"A society still conducting this kind of manmade technological violence after many decades of knowing exactly the suffering it causes to innocent people must believe in these weapons much more than in life itself."
nymag.com/intelligence...
"A society still conducting this kind of manmade technological violence after many decades of knowing exactly the suffering it causes to innocent people must believe in these weapons much more than in life itself."
nymag.com/intelligence...
Looking forward to Sadiah Qureshi's new book Vanished on how extinction is entangled with race, empire and colonialism.
"Paying attention to the life around us and recalibrating how we value that life is just as powerful as having more scientific research”.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"Paying attention to the life around us and recalibrating how we value that life is just as powerful as having more scientific research”.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘A billionaire will pay a lot of money to shoot a recreated being’: historian Sadiah Qureshi on extinction and empire
In her new book, Vanished, the history professor picks apart the political and philosophical dimensions of species loss
www.theguardian.com
June 13, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Looking forward to Sadiah Qureshi's new book Vanished on how extinction is entangled with race, empire and colonialism.
"Paying attention to the life around us and recalibrating how we value that life is just as powerful as having more scientific research”.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"Paying attention to the life around us and recalibrating how we value that life is just as powerful as having more scientific research”.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Reposted by Kira Walker
#CanadaIsBurning, and it won't be solved by expanding oil and gas. @markcarneyforpm.bsky.social @liberalca.bsky.social #cdnppli
UK weather forecast on Sunday morning said that sunshine would be dimmed by smoke from Canadian wildfires, carried in the jetstream.
June 10, 2025 at 6:36 AM
#CanadaIsBurning, and it won't be solved by expanding oil and gas. @markcarneyforpm.bsky.social @liberalca.bsky.social #cdnppli
Reposted by Kira Walker
Must watch, like the must read. @johnvaillant.bsky.social has straight answers to our Qs. Do we want it any other way? We and our planet deserve this kind of respect. @livewirecalgary.bsky.social @sprawlcalgary.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAL0...
Wildfire expert answers your questions on fire prevention, control
YouTube video by CBC News
www.youtube.com
June 6, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Must watch, like the must read. @johnvaillant.bsky.social has straight answers to our Qs. Do we want it any other way? We and our planet deserve this kind of respect. @livewirecalgary.bsky.social @sprawlcalgary.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAL0...
Reposted by Kira Walker
“One of our very good friends – he now does not have the emotional courage to hang up a sheet to collect moths at night. It is too devastating to see how few there are.”
On climate change and a shifting world: for insects, for birds, for bats, for us.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
On climate change and a shifting world: for insects, for birds, for bats, for us.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects
A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides
www.theguardian.com
June 4, 2025 at 6:00 AM
“One of our very good friends – he now does not have the emotional courage to hang up a sheet to collect moths at night. It is too devastating to see how few there are.”
On climate change and a shifting world: for insects, for birds, for bats, for us.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
On climate change and a shifting world: for insects, for birds, for bats, for us.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Reposted by Kira Walker
The boreal zone of Canada is being transformed by fire faster than any other forested region on earth. The Amazon is not far behind. "We are the world, and the world is on fire..."
#Wildfire season is off to a brutal start again this year. 84 'out of control' fires out of 166+ active burns across #Canada. 17,000 people evacuated in Manitoba this week. Canada is warming at 2x the global average & multiple temp records broken 28 May (Kamloops BC 35C). www.bbc.com/news/article...
Western Canada wildfires emergency hits Saskatchewan as thousands flee
Saskatchewan's premier says the situation is "unlike anything we have faced in quite some time, if not ever".
www.bbc.com
May 30, 2025 at 4:22 AM
The boreal zone of Canada is being transformed by fire faster than any other forested region on earth. The Amazon is not far behind. "We are the world, and the world is on fire..."
Reposted by Kira Walker
In Georgia’s Adjara highlands, a traditional way of life is slowly disappearing. Natela Grigalashvili photographed one pastoral nomadic community over 10 years to explore how people adapt to changing circumstances and create new meaning in today’s world: www.thedial.world/articles/new...
The Last Nomads — The Dial
In Georgia’s Adjara highlands, a traditional way of life is slowly disappearing.
www.thedial.world
May 20, 2025 at 4:11 PM
In Georgia’s Adjara highlands, a traditional way of life is slowly disappearing. Natela Grigalashvili photographed one pastoral nomadic community over 10 years to explore how people adapt to changing circumstances and create new meaning in today’s world: www.thedial.world/articles/new...
Reposted by Kira Walker
Western governments have made it clear that they do not care about human rights and the rule of law when it comes to people of colour, the global majority. They spit on humanity. 500 years on from the beginning of the European colonial project and they have hardly changed in this regard.
May 12, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Western governments have made it clear that they do not care about human rights and the rule of law when it comes to people of colour, the global majority. They spit on humanity. 500 years on from the beginning of the European colonial project and they have hardly changed in this regard.
"The decision marks a shift away from science-based policymaking in the new EU mandate, setting a worrying trend that can reach far beyond the wolf."
www.birdlife.org/news/2025/05...
www.birdlife.org/news/2025/05...
Europe turns its back on wolves and on science
Environmental groups condemn EU Parliament’s approval to downgrade wolf protection as an attack on nature
www.birdlife.org
May 8, 2025 at 3:24 PM
"The decision marks a shift away from science-based policymaking in the new EU mandate, setting a worrying trend that can reach far beyond the wolf."
www.birdlife.org/news/2025/05...
www.birdlife.org/news/2025/05...
I've started a Substack, Amor Mundi, where I'll be writing about love of the world through themes like awe, beauty, courage, coexistence and grief—often with a connecting thread to the natural world.
Here's my first essay:
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-the-w...
Here's my first essay:
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-the-w...
When the world aches
Love it anyway
kiraw.substack.com
April 25, 2025 at 11:03 AM
I've started a Substack, Amor Mundi, where I'll be writing about love of the world through themes like awe, beauty, courage, coexistence and grief—often with a connecting thread to the natural world.
Here's my first essay:
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-the-w...
Here's my first essay:
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-the-w...
Reposted by Kira Walker
For the birds—and the people who endeavor to save them, including @julianhoffman.bsky.social, my story for the @nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/t...
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/t...
Jared Kushner Targets Albania’s Adriatic Coast for Luxury Tourism
Two major proposals led by Jared Kushner and a new airport championed by the Albanian government focus on an area prized for its biodiversity. Are they a sign of things to come?
www.nytimes.com
April 23, 2025 at 11:24 AM
For the birds—and the people who endeavor to save them, including @julianhoffman.bsky.social, my story for the @nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/t...
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/t...
Reposted by Kira Walker
Great to see so many wonderful winners of this year's Goldman Prize for grassroots environmental action, including Olsi Nika and Besjana Guri for their incredible efforts to protect the free-flowing Vjosa River in Albania from the threat of hydro-electric dams.
news.mongabay.com/2025/04/meet...
news.mongabay.com/2025/04/meet...
Meet the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
Seven environmental activists from around the world will be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 21. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Prize honors activists from the six inhab...
news.mongabay.com
April 22, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Great to see so many wonderful winners of this year's Goldman Prize for grassroots environmental action, including Olsi Nika and Besjana Guri for their incredible efforts to protect the free-flowing Vjosa River in Albania from the threat of hydro-electric dams.
news.mongabay.com/2025/04/meet...
news.mongabay.com/2025/04/meet...
Reposted by Kira Walker
It takes an almost impressive level of cognitive malfunction to think of Grozny, Sarajevo, Aleppo, and Mariupol as war crimes while considering this legitimate warfare.
April 9, 2025 at 6:09 PM
It takes an almost impressive level of cognitive malfunction to think of Grozny, Sarajevo, Aleppo, and Mariupol as war crimes while considering this legitimate warfare.