Author Don Belt has traveled to 65 countries over the past three decades, working as a writer and editor for National Geographic magazine. Along the way, he has covered the defining issues of our time such as environmental degradation, vanishing cultures, Islam and the West, the effects of global climate change, and the geopolitical trends that are shaping our world. His many major article credits include stories on Russia’s Lake Baikal and Cold War science in the Russian Arctic. As senior editor of National Geographic from 1998 to 2010, Don helped to guide the magazine’s coverage of topics ranging from weapons of mass destruction and the use of terrorism to the legacy of colonialism in the modern Middle East. He has lived, on assignment, with Bedouin in Jordan, truckers in India, tribesmen in Pakistan, sailors in Siberia, and flea-bitten fishermen on the west coast of Mexico. He served as the magazine’s senior editor for expeditions for three years, its foreign editor for five. National Geographic’s chief foreign correspondent from 2006 to 2011, Belt now serves the magazine as an editorial consultant and Contributing Writer.