National Geographic has teamed up with Angelina Jolie to raise awareness of World Bee Day and a new bee conservation program designed to empower women.National Geographic also shares an exclusive interview with Jolie about World Bee Day and the great impact the insects have on our planet and food resources.
Photograph by Dan Winters/National Geographic
What’s Happening:
- Today, on World Bee Day, National Geographic is teaming up with Angelina Jolie, to raise awareness across Nat Geo platforms of bee conservation and a new program to empower women beekeepers around the world.
- While most audiences will recognize Jolie for her work in the film, she’s also passionate about humanitarian issues and currently serves as Special Envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
- As a Special Envoy, she’s witnessed firsthand the link between environmental destruction, food insecurity and human displacement around the world.
- In addition to her work with the UN, she has also spent 17 years supporting local communities in Cambodia in their efforts to combat the deforestation and illegal logging that threaten bees, other wildlife, and the ecosystem as a whole.
- As part of the collaboration, National Geographic’s Indira Lakshmanan, senior executive editor, sat down for an exclusive interview with Jolie.
- Together they discuss the importance of bee conservation as well as Jolie’s involvement in the GUERLAIN x UNESCO “Women for Bees” programme.
- The Women for Bees programme aims to train and graduate 50 women beekeepers by 2025 who will be able to establish and maintain their own beekeeping operations.
- The program also seeks to build 2,500 hives within 25 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and restock 125 million bees. The spotlight on bee conservation falls under Nat Geo’s recently launched Planet Possible initiative, designed to inspire and empower people to ‘live more lightly on the planet.’
- National Geographic’s exclusive World Bee Day interview with Angelina Jolie at NatGeo.com/Bees.
What They’re Saying:
- Angelina Jolie: “With so much we are worried about around the world and so many people feeling overwhelmed with bad news and the reality of what is collapsing and what is happening, this is one [issue] that we can manage. We can certainly all step in and do our part, and we can do much better and anybody can.”
- National Geographic’s VP of visuals and immersive experiences Whitney Johnson: “At National Geographic, we recognize the power that visual storytelling has to drive real change. In celebrating World Bee Day, we wanted to shine a light on the difficulties facing bees in a creative and eye-catching way. Collaborating with Angelina Jolie and inspired by the iconic Richard Avedon portrait, the ‘Women for Bees’ entrepreneurship program presented a unique entry point for us to engage readers on an issue that they might not think about everyday but impacts so much of our everyday lives.”