Michael O. Snyder: Climate & Heritage Photography with Outex

Feb 06, 2026

Visual Storyteller and Outex Ambassador Michael O. Snyder Promotes Preservation by Documenting Climate Change at the World’s Most Precious Heritage Sites.

Across the planet’s most fragile landscapes—ancient desert cities, frozen northern lakes, and cultural treasures shaped by thousands of years of human history—photographer and Outex ambassador Michael O. Snyder is telling stories that reach far beyond photography.

Ancient rock-carved monastery in Petra, Jordan, surrounded by rugged sandstone cliffs under a clear blue sky.

Working under a long-term grant from the National Geographic Society, Snyder is documenting how World Heritage sites are adapting to climate change through a global initiative known as Preserving Legacies. The project represents one of the most ambitious international efforts to connect cultural heritage preservation with climate science, indigenous knowledge, and local leadership—ensuring that humanity’s shared history can endure a rapidly changing planet. #HeritageAdapts

Man taking a selfie with camera gear at Petra’s Monastery in Jordan, sitting on a rocky ledge with ancient ruins in the background.

More than 30 globally significant sites—from Petra to the Okavango Delta and Skellig Michael—are now part of this growing collaboration. Snyder has already photographed stories at 12 locations, with multiple features published by National Geographic, bringing global visibility to communities working on the front lines of climate adaptation.

This is visual storytelling not just about loss—but about resilience, knowledge, and hope.

Petra: Ancient Engineering Meets Modern Climate Science

Half-carved into rose-colored desert stone, Petra stands among the world’s most iconic cultural landscapes. Once the thriving capital of the Nabataean Kingdom and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site visited by nearly a million people each year, the city faces a growing and unexpected threat: flooding intensified by climate change.

Local archeologists discovered a hidden system of water channels behind the rock faces of Petra. These were built by the ancient Nabbateans and are now being rebuilt to help manage increased flooding due to climate change. This ancient hydraulic systems may hold the key to saving Petra World Heritage Site from climate change. Pretty cool stuff.

A man in traditional Middle Eastern attire holds a water bottle and touches the rocky wall of a narrow canyon.

Sabbah Eid a Bedouin elder from the Zalabia clan of the Anaza tribe examines the walls of a siq in Wadi Rum. “The men in my tribe, we were all rock climbers. It was a sign of strength to be able to climb these walls.” He says proudly. “Now I am too old and too wise to climb any more. But it also has become much more dangerous. The floods have loosened many rocks that were once stable and have worn away areas on the walls where you could grasp. It isn’t just the destruction caused by flooding that is the problem, it’s the loss of cultural heritage; the loss of our traditions and way of life.”

Seasonal rains, once manageable, are becoming more frequent and severe—sending destructive flash floods through narrow rock corridors and threatening both visitors and the ancient structures themselves.

Yet the potential solution may already exist within Petra’s past.

Archaeologists have uncovered sophisticated Nabataean water-management systems—channels, dams, reservoirs, and cisterns—designed more than two millennia ago to control scarce desert water. Modern researchers are now studying and restoring these systems, combining:

Downscaled regional climate modeling
Archaeological evidence
Indigenous and local knowledge
Ethical, community-driven adaptation planning

This plural knowledge approach sits at the heart of the Preserving Legacies initiative, led by climate-heritage experts including National Geographic Explorer Dr. Victoria Herrmann. Petra has become a global case study for how ancient wisdom and modern science together can protect heritage from climate risk.

Snyder’s photographs translate this complex intersection of history, science, and community into something immediate and emotional—allowing viewers worldwide to witness both the fragility and the possibility embedded in the stone.

A person with a camera stands on stone stairs beside a large, partially flooded underground chamber lit by sunlight from above.

Hani Falahat, a retired researcher from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities examines an ancient Nabataean cistern at a site called ‘Little Petra’. “Even though this complex is over 2,000 years old, it still works! Can you believe that?” says Hani. “It still fills with water. You can see how clear the water is. Cisterns like this helped with flooding, of course, because they would fill during large rain events. But they also provided long-term stores of water in an unpredictable and hostile desert. Water here was very important. Petra lies at the cross-section of numerous caravan routes. So, thousands of camels and visitors would come here. Cisterns like this could be used for them and also to irrigate fields for food.”

Two people work together to restore an ancient stone wall in a rocky, desert landscape at sunset.

Taher Falahat and Victoria Herrmann, a climate adaptation specialist who leads the Preserving Legacies project, work to repair a terrace-dam on a hillside outside of Petra. “If you look carefully across these hillsides, you will see subtle lines.” Says Taher, as he points. “See, they are everywhere. These are terraces that the Nabataeans built to prevent water cascading down into the canyons. It wasn’t just the canyons within Petra that they transformed. It was the land all around it. Over the centuries, trees, shrubs, and sediment have covered up the terraces, but they are still there. Now we are working to restore and rebuild these systems. Not only will this help with flooding, but it prevents soil erosion, and will bring back agriculture and disappearing species to these hills.”

A person walks along a narrow, sunlit path between high, reddish-orange rock walls in a canyon.

A visitor walks through the Siq, the narrow canyon entrance to the city of Petra. Along the walls of the Siq are channels that were carved into the rock to bring water all the way from the mountainous highlands that surround the city to the temples and tomb complexes at its center. Site custodians are rebuilding channels, dams, and other ancient flood management structures to control the flow of water through the city.

A woman speaks with a microphone to people seated at tables in a library, with bookshelves, a flag, and large windows in the background.

Haifaa Abedalhaleem, Heritage and Climate Change Senior Officer at the Petra National Trust, delivers a workshop to a group of community stakeholders who have been tasked with designing a site-specific climate adaptation strategy for Petra and Wadi Musa.“Perhaps it’s counter-intuitive,” says Haifaa “but the primary risks to this site come not from the encroaching desert, but from the rains. We are seeing an increase in the frequency and intensity of rain events in the region, due to changes in the climate. Because this is a land of hard rock canyons, these rains collect in the deep valleys as flash floods. These events are not only dangerous for visitors, but are actually damaging the site itself. It’s a very serious threat.”

Canada’s Northern Map Turtles: Survival at the Edge of Winter

A global map of reptiles reveals a simple truth: most depend on warm, stable climates to survive.

A person in an orange suit kneels on ice, lowering equipment into a hole, with a light illuminating the water below.

Yet in southern Ontario and Québec lives a remarkable exception—the northern map turtle (Graptemys geographica), among the most cold-adapted reptiles on Earth. These turtles spend winter beneath frozen lakes, lowering their body temperature to near freezing and slowing their metabolism almost to stillness while resting on the lakebed for months.

A turtle swims underwater over a bed of mussels, with light filtering through the water above.

For over two decades, biologist Dr. Grégory Bulté has studied this fragile population at Opinicon Lake. Recent discoveries, however, reveal an unsettling shift. Changing winter patterns—driven by climate change—are creating new openings in lake ice, allowing predators to reach turtles during their most vulnerable state.

A person in winter clothes and snowshoes digs a hole in an icy lake during a heavy snowstorm, with snow blowing all around.

One of the world’s northern-most reptile species, the northern map turtle, has adapted to live under the ice in the lakes of Ontario, Canada. Recently, otters have been decimating their populations. Scientists think climate change is to blame.

The findings raise urgent questions:

Can the species adapt quickly enough?
How significant is winter predation to long-term survival?
Will changing temperatures alter reproduction or behavior?

Through Snyder’s lens, this scientific research becomes deeply human—revealing the quiet tension between ancient biological adaptation and rapid environmental change.

Three turtles underwater rest on large rocks covered with small shellfish, surrounded by murky water and illuminated by sunlight from above.

The imagery created underwater—credited to Michael O. Snyder and Justin Dalaba—offers a rare visual record of life beneath the ice, where survival unfolds in near silence.

A man in a blue hooded jacket with a frost-covered beard and eyebrows stands outside in snowy, icy conditions, his face red from the cold.

Photography in Service of the Future

The Preserving Legacies project is not only about documenting climate change.
It is about equipping communities with knowledge, amplifying local leadership, and protecting humanity’s shared cultural memory.

Through Snyder’s work with the National Geographic Society—and through the visual power made possible by Outex—viewers are invited to see climate adaptation not as abstraction, but as real people, real places, and real solutions unfolding now.

From frozen Canadian lakes to the desert stone of Petra, one truth becomes clear:

Preserving the past may be one of the most important ways to protect the future.

Visual Storytelling in Extreme Environments: Why Outex Matters

Documenting submerged turtles beneath winter ice.
Photographing flash-flood-carved desert canyons.
Working in mud, water, sand, and remote terrain.

Projects like Preserving Legacies demand tools that are as resilient as the stories themselves.

For Snyder, that reliability comes from Outex underwater camera housing systems, which enable:

Professional optical glass clarity for scientific and editorial imaging precision that's uncompromising.
Universal camera and lens compatibility across camera bodies and lenses. Whether it's working with DSLR, mirrorless, or cinema cameras, and the multitude of lenses that are required for different jobs, compatibility is important. So knowing that my single Outex Camera Pro Kit can work for virtually any need is invaluable.
Full tactile control of settings in wet or submerged environments, so I can use it in hot, dessert-like environments as well as frigid water conditions with gloves and still control all of my buttons, levers, and knobs on any of my cameras in changing conditions can make a difference between a average or unforgettable shot.
Lightweight, travel-ready design for global expeditions is a must. I'm already packing a lot of camera gear. I don't want another case just for my waterproof case. The entire Outex Pro Kit fits into a bag pocket and adds virtually not weight or bulk to my travel gear.
Affordability that supports long-term field storytelling. Goes without saying.

In environments where failure could mean losing irreplaceable documentation, Outex becomes more than gear—it becomes part of the storytelling infrastructure itself.