Katie Falkenberg

Decades ago, poachers would set off explosives in the cool waters of this North Umpqua River tributary, killing steelhead by the dozens. That was before Lee Spencer settled in to watch over the wild steelhead. At a time when environmental protections are being lifted and scientific research budgets slashed, one man's study of the world in front of him is a throwback to conservation work rooted in bearing witness to simple truths in nature.

A Navajo shepherdess perseveres despite extreme drought in this poetic short film about a rapidly vanishing way of life. “We didn’t even go up the mountain because there’s no water,” she recounts. “Hardships are just lessons and challenges in life and you just can’t dwell on it, you have to live through it.”

Virunga National Park, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is Africa's oldest and most bio-diverse National Park. It is also home to about a quarter of the world's estimated 880 mountain gorillas left in the wild. With determination, hope, and grit, Virunga's rangers protect this UNESCO World Heritage site from rebel militias, poachers, the illegal charcoal trade, and, most recently, a high-stakes proposal to explore for oil.

More than 2,500 children were separated from their parents after the Trump administration instituted a “zero-tolerance” policy against anyone who crossed the border illegally. Many parents were deported back to Central America, leaving behind about 400 children.

Two lives, two jobs, and two cities irretrievably linked by the geography of global economics.

"You get married with the idea of forever in mind. Thinking about losing each other…you don't plan on that." Two army wives, also good friends, had husbands deployed together in Afghanistan. While there, an attack took down their Blackhawk. Only one came home.

Omar Wawieh, age 19, and his family fled Syria's civil war and arrived in the U.S. last month. Omar has rich memories of his childhood in Syria before the war; now he is dedicated to making sure his younger siblings have a good childhood.

She begged him not to leave Mexico again. But the lure of America was powerful, and deadly.

Suffering from ALS, Angie Bloomquist wants to be able to die through doctor-prescribed medication, a controversial issue known as "aid in dying" or "assisted suicide."

“It is a calamity we are expecting to come,” says Sister María Engracia Robles, about the number of people she expects will be deported from the U.S. to Mexico under the Trump administration. Sister Robles works at “El Comedor,” or “Dining Room,” in Nogales, Mexico, on the border with the U.S. The humble building provides meals and other humanitarian services to migrants and recent deportees. Robles says they are not prepared in the small space they have — to receive the “stampede of deportees” she expects will arrive.

Two years after returning from Afghanistan, three soldiers from Michigan National Guard's Charlie Troop, each affected by war in a different way, still struggle to fit back into the civilian world.

Velva Stone, whose mother was a suffragette, and who was born in 1913 -- seven years before women had the right to vote -- was thrilled to vote for the first woman president.

* Shot entirely on iPhones * Five women set out on an eight day, 65-mile pack-rafting journey deep in the wilderness of Montana. Stunning scenery, challenging terrain, heavy packs, and extreme remoteness brings the group to their physical edge. A trip inspired by self growth, adventure, and world class fly fishing quickly evolves into a deeper exploration of how we are on the edge of a new climate era, leading them to question what the future of conservation and ethical wilderness recreation will look like in a rapidly changing climate.

Alessandra de Sousa Amorim says that she would have to stop buying food in order to afford bug repellent. In northeast Brazil, those living in poverty have been disproportionately affected by the Zika virus due to lack of running water, the absence of screens on doors and windows, and the inability to afford bug spray. When Alessandra was pregnant last summer, she developed telltale symptoms of a Zika infection. Her son was born with microcephaly in December.