Women dance at the Taiga nightclub in Batroun village, north of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, July 2, 2021. With their dollars trapped in the bank, a lack of functioning credit cards and travel restrictions imposed because of the pandemic, many Lebanese who traditionally vacationed over the summer at regional hotspots are also now turning toward domestic tourism. (Photo by Hassan Ammar/AP Photo)

Tim Laman is a field biologist and wildlife photojournalist. His pioneering research in the rain forest canopy in Borneo led to a PhD from Harvard and his first National Geographic article in 1997. Since then, he has pursued his passion for exploring wild places and documenting little-known and endangered wildlife by becoming a regular contributor to National Geographic. He has eighteen articles to his credit to date, all of which have had a conservation message. Some have focused on endangered species such as Orangutans or Hornbills, while others, such as a series of articles on Conservation International’s Biodiversity Hotspots, have highlighted regions under intense pressure.

A man dressed in Andean attire as “Ukukus” or “Pabluchas”, a traditional character that acts as a vigilante imposing social order, uses a whip as a threat to force people to maintain their distance and remind them to wear face masks and gloves as a preventive measure against the novel coronavirus COVID-19, in the Vinocanchon market area in San Jeronimo district, close to the Peruvian Andean city of Cusco, on May 2, 2020. The government has identified public markets as major hotspots of the new coronavirus in Peru, where 40,459 confirmed cases and 1,124 deaths were reported on May 1. (Photo by Jose Carlos Angulo/AFP Photo)

A health worker shows an empty syringe after inoculating a woman with AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine during the first day of a nationwide three-day vaccination drive at a school in Quezon city, Philippines on Monday, November 29, 2021. There has been no reported infection so far caused by the new variant in the Philippines, a Southeast Asian pandemic hotspot where COVID-19 cases have considerably dropped to below 1,000 each day in recent days, but the emergence of the Omicron variant has set off a new alarm. (Photo by Aaron Favila/AP Photo)

A U.S. Navy F18 fighter jet takes off from aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson during a FONOPS (Freedom of Navigation Operation Patrol) in South China Sea, March 3, 2017. The U.S. military took journalists Friday to the carrier on routine patrol off the disputed South China Sea, sending a signal to China and American allies of its resolve to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight in one of the world's security hotspots. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)

Large trumpet vines spread across electrical lines next to a highway in Kinston, N.C., on June 23, 2014. (Photo by Janet S. Carter/Kinston Free Press via AP Photo)

Police cars are seen overturned in the street in the framework of a demonstration against Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana, on July 11, 2021. Thousands of Cubans took part in rare protests Sunday against the communist government, marching through a town chanting “Down with the dictatorship” and “We want liberty”. (Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP Photo)

Villagers riding a rickshaw maneuver along an overflowing dam at the border between Cavite province and Las Pinas city, in Las Pinas, Philippines, 25 October 2020. According to Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), Typhoon Molave will make landfall in the evening of 25 October in southern Luzon island. An alert was issued to residents for possible floods and landslides. (Photo by Francis R Malasig/EPA/EFE)