New Books on the Shelf

Woody Kipp (High Country 1995) has written and released Viet Cong at Wounded Knee: The Trail of a Blackfeet Activist. Published by University of Nebraska Press, the book is a highly personal memoir about the difficulties of cross-cultural understanding. It reflects on Woody's boyhood on the Rez, his early passion for reading and basketball, his alcoholism and brawl-scarred adolescence, tours of duty in Vietnam as a Marine and later at Wounded Knee as a foot soldier in the American Indian Movement. Woody remains active on the pow-wow circuit as a grass dancer and still pursues his interests in sweat lodge ceremonies and spiritual learning. He now teaches classes full-time in English, journalism and Native American culture at Blackfeet Community College in Browning, Montana. "I live a hundred yards from Cut Bank Creek and last evening caught three nice trout," Woody wrote to us this fall, "so I won’t starve as long as the fish keep biting."

Carol Ann Bassett (Pacific Northwest 1999) recently received tenure as an associate professor in the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communications. She serves as faculty advisor for Flux magazine, an award-winning student publication, and teaches graduate-level courses in environmental journalism.

This fall, the University of Arizona Press published Carol Ann’s second book, Organ Pipe: Life on the Edge, which is part of the university’s Desert Places Series. Her first book, A Gathering of Stones, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in creative nonfiction.

Workplace Switches

Claudia Assis (Low Country 2001) has made a smooth transition from The Herald-Sun in Durham, North Carolina, to the much larger Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia. Even though her main responsibility is covering municipal government, she also gets to generate and pursue story ideas of her own on such topics as restoration efforts in the Great Dismal Swamp Refuge and reintroduction of red cockaded woodpeckers.

Jennifer Tucker Frazer (Acadian 2004) has started a full-time reporting job at the 17,000-circulation Wyoming Tribune-Eagle in Cheyenne, where she expects to cover issues of public health, environment and the local economy. In September, Jennifer was “between engagements” (as they say in Hollywood) while being an Acadian Fellow. She had just finished a productive internship at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, where she worked alongside and learned a lot from Jim Bruggers (Acadian 1997).

Genevieve Bookwalter (Southern Cascadia 2002) has moved from covering Yosemite National Park, logging, fisheries and other Sierra Nevada issues at the 11,000-circulation Union Democrat in the Sierra foothills town of Sonora to covering marine research, redwoods, organic farming and other Monterey Bay topics for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, a 27,000-circulation daily.

Kristi Heim (Pacific Northwest 2001) has left the San Jose Mercury News to join a growing contingent of IJNR Fellows at The Seattle Times. Her new colleagues include Jim Simon (High Country 1997), Lynda Mapes (High Country 1998), Florángela Dávila (Pacific Northwest 1999), Craig Welch (Pacific Northwest 2000), Christopher Schwarzen (Low Country 2001), Mark Higgins (Midnight Sun 2003) and Ian Ith (Klamath Country 2004).

Seth Muller (Klamath Country 2004) is leaving the environment and county-government beats at the Arizona Daily Sun to become editor of a sister publication in Flagstaff called Mountain Living. The monthly magazine has about 20,000 readers. Seth characterizes the move as both a promotion and "a chance to do something different."

National Recognition

Hearty congratulations to eight IJNR Fellows honored in October by the Society of Environmental Journalists for excellent work during the past year:

• Ilsa Setziol (Southern Cascadia 2002), a reporter at KPCC Public Radio in Pasadena, California, won first place for radio beat reporting. Judges called her work "solid public radio science journalism"; and noted that "her delivery is crisp, confident and never preachy."

• Heather Duncan (Low Country 2002), environment reporter at The Telegraph in Macon Georgia, won first place for the small-market category in print reporting. Her series, "Tied to the Land," explored the cultural as well as environmental challenges facing Georgia's traditional rural communities. Judges praised the work for being imaginative in concept and eloquent in execution. We agree.

• Daniel Grossman (High Country 1998), formerly of Living on Earth and now an independent broadcast producer, won a first-place award for "The Penguin Barometer," a documentary distributed by Radio Netherlands. Daniel's in-depth treatment of global warming required much global roaming.

• Seth Borenstein (Midnight Sun 2003), Knight Ridder Newspapers, Washington bureau, won first place in print beat reporting for what the judges described as "outstanding coverage of an unusually wide range of environmental topics." Seth's winning portfolio included a package of stories about the melting of Alaska's glaciers, generated from his IJNR experience.

• Doug MacPherson (Acadian 1999) earned third-place recognition for his extensive reporting at New Hampshire Public Radio. The judges praised Doug's gift for explaining complex science stories. They actually used the term "quirky," which is something we've also noticed about him.

• Ed Jahn (Southern Cascadia 2002), a producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting, won second-place recognition for his television program called "Biscuit Fire Recovery," which examined the aftermath of the largest wildfire in Oregon history. One judge said, "When I watch TV programs, at the end of the story I ask myself if it was time well-spent. I can say -- this was time well spent. I learned things that I didn't know."

• Margie Kriz (High Country 1998), senior reporter for the National Journal, was the second-place winner in the small-market category of print reporting. The judges noted that she writes for "a highly educated and aware circle of Washington insiders" and that her coverage has directly influenced EPA actions.

• Lisa "Kersch" Kerscher (High Country 1997) was recognized for her writing for Learners Online NIE, an educational web site serving primary and secondary students. Judges called her compilations "thought provoking and fact-packed, in contrast to the vapid, tame fare generally supplied to schoolchildren."

We commend Kersch and all of the other SEJ award winners for avoiding vapidity and tameness.

Other Occurrences

Lee Bergquist (Great Waters 2003) and newsroom colleague Dan Egan received Governing magazine's first Hal Hovey Reporting Award for "Troubled Waters," their exemplary series in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about ecological challenges facing the Great Lakes. Their series examined conditions in several communities that are experiencing increased trouble with their water systems, and of others that have problems on the horizon. Lee says the idea for the series grew out his participation in the Great Waters journey.

David Wiwchar (Midnight Sun 2003) won an award from the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum for an article he wrote comparing oil-drilling rigs in British Columbia and Alaska—an idea he says came from the Midnight Sun experience. David is managing editor of Ha-Shilth-Sa (Canada’s oldest First Nations newspaper) published in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.

Jennifer Savage (Low Country 2001) married Seth Quackenbush in the hay field behind their farmhouse in Arlee, Montana. (If Seth weren't a carpenter, she would have married him anyway.) Guests who stayed late reveled in the hokey-pokey and unrefined honky-tonk music, then beheld an enchanting display of the northern lights. We take that as a good sign.

• Sky Barsch, Reporter, The Times Argus, Barre, Vermont
• Jennifer Chu, Reporter/Producer, Living On Earth, Somerville, Mass.
• Matt Crawford, Outdoors Editor & Environment Reporter, Burlington Free Press, Burlington, Vermont
• Josh Garrett-Davis, Freelance Writer, Brooklyn, New York
• Elizabeth Dorsey, Reporter, The Times Record, Brunswick, Maine
• Jennifer Tucker Frazer, recent Reporter/Intern, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky
• Steve Heaslip, Senior Photographer, Cape Cod Times, Barnstable, Mass.

• John Krist, Senior Reporter, Ventura County Star, Ventura, California
• Paul Lefebvre, Reporter, The Barton Chronicle, Barton, Vermont
• Mary Landers, Environment Reporter, Savannah Morning News, Savannah, Georgia
• Jennifer Mitchell, Reporter, Maine Public Radio, Bangor, Maine
• Sarah Staples, Senior Writer, CanWest News Service, Montreal, Québec
• Steve Sutherland, Reporter/Producer, CBC Radio One, Halifax, Nova Scotia
• Tim Wacker, Environment Reporter, The Eagle-Tribune, Newburyport, Mass.

Wildfire, Drought and Rural Conflict
2004 Klamath Fellows Found Collaboration, Skepticism in Southern Oregon

National Public Radio's Jeff Brady examines one specimen collected during the Fellows' search for amphibians and fish in a wooded wetland. IJNR Photo by Andrew Weegar.

IJNR always asks the Fellows to pack rain gear, flashlights, toothbrushes and, among other items, "flexibility, a good attitude and a sense of humor." These last three on the list were abundant during the 2004 Klamath Country Institute—and all proved essential as the mercury climbed in mid-July.

The expedition was IJNR's second in the drought-burdened landscapes of southwest Oregon, where rural communities struggle with contentious natural-resource issues. (The 2002 Southern Cascadia Institute explored similar themes while covering a slightly different geographic footprint.)

Andrew Weegar organized and led the trip. He designed an itinerary that helped the 14 journalists steadily accumulate perspectives—historical, economic, scientific and cultural—that are indispensable to understanding the Klamath River Basin and its stories.

Fellows paddled canoes through a seven-mile stretch of the Upper Klamath Wildlife Refuge. The wetlands in the Klamath Basin have been called "the Everglades of the West." This vast, rich web of freshwater marshes and shallow lakes once provided feeding, nesting and brood-rearing habitat for millions of waterfowl.

The journalists met with tribal leaders, who explained that three species of fish—coho salmon, shortnose suckers and Lost River suckers—have special importance to the Klamath tribes. The Fellows also spent time at several local farms, watched an alfalfa harvest, sampled crops of mint and horse radish, and shared supper under a canopy of shade trees with about 20 farm families.

A number of private and public initiatives aim to restore some of the fish and wildlife habitat lost to agricultural development in the Klamath basin. The journalists visited restoration projects at the Nature Conservancy’s Williamson River Wetlands complex and at the BLM’s Wood River Wetlands. Both of these efforts are part of the Eastern Cascades Bioregion Wetlands Joint Venture, which seeks to restore 29,500 acres in the Upper Klamath watershed.

Fellows hiked along Sheepy Ridge and talked with Ron Cole, manager of the Klamath National Wildlife Refuges complex. IJNR photo by Frank Allen.

The Fellows also visited intensely burned sections of the Siskiyou National Forest. Shade was scarce and water bottles emptied fast as they perched on a steep mountainside with experts to discuss proposals for salvage logging on the 500,000 acres burned in the Biscuit Fire of 2002.

While touring active logging and milling sites on Boise corporate properties, the journalists learned why most large companies no longer rely on federal lands as the chief source for saw logs or fiber. Private woodlands are now managed more intensely to shorten stand rotations and boost yields.

In the early 1990s, extensive clear-cutting in southern Oregon's Applegate Valley inspired local conservationists, loggers and federal managers to develop a cooperative approach to forest harvesting. During a community dinner at the farm of Jack and Susan Shipley, valley neighbors (who just a few years ago wouldn’t speak to one another) shared their stories with the journalists. Afterward, the journalists stayed overnight as guests of several local families.

Toward the end of the week, the group traded the inland heat for the coolness of the coast, examining current conditions of marine fisheries. The journalists visited a fish-processing plant in Bandon, Oregon, where they also spoke with small-scale commercial fishermen and discussed emerging ocean conservation trends with a diverse panel of speakers.

Wildlife biologist Lowell Diller bands one leg of an adult male spotted owl. IJNR photo by Andrew Weegar.

The unexpected highlight of the entire journey unfolded while the group was visiting research sites on land owned by Green Diamond Management Company (formerly the timberlands unit of Simpson Timber). The land hosts five endangered species: Northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets, torrent salamanders, Pacific tailed frogs and Pacific fishers.

Lowell Diller, one of Green Diamond’s senior scientists, took the journalists on a trek through a thickly wooded stand, ostensibly in search of dusty footed wood rats, which spotted owls like for breakfast, lunch and dinner. About 50 yards into the thicket, environment reporter David Sneed from The Tribune (San Luis Obispo) happened to look up. What he saw on a high branch caused him to interrupt Lowell’s ambulatory lecture.

"Excuse me, Lowell, but isn’t that a spotted owl up there?" said David as he pointed. Then the other journalists looked up and around, and soon three more owls had been spotted. All four birds were related—a mom and a dad and their two plump offspring, which looked as if they had just been fluffed with a blow dryer.

The journalists helped Lowell catch the adult male owl. While they watched from about six feet away, Lowell calmly held the owl close to his chest, with one hand wrapped around both of its legs. The bird looked out at the reporters and editors. Lowell spoke softly and massaged its eyebrows. To the delight of the group, the owl swooned, looking up affectionately at its captor while a metal band was being placed around one leg.

After the banded owl was released (he flew back up into the same tree), the journalists took turns offering live white mice on the end of a long stick to the curious mother owl. She bobbed and weaved from her high perch, reckoning the distance to her prey, and then swooped down to grab the mouse on the fly. Once she had landed on a nearby branch, the juveniles quickly joined her and began to beg for the mouse. About six mice later (Lowell always carries quite a supply), Frank Allen showed off by holding up a live mouse in his leather-gloved hand. "The tug I felt was powerful," Frank said later. "And now my glove has three puncture holes."

There’s an old joke about journalists, you know. It’s been said that 85 percent of them give the other 15 percent a bad name.

That’s probably not far from true. But since our organization’s inception in 1995, IJNR has worked hard to expand that 15 percent. And it is my firm belief that we have made, and are making, a considerable difference in the quality, balance and morale in environmental and natural resources reporting in the United States. That’s why all of us are here today and why we believe in IJNR.

This meeting marks our tenth year in business. Think about that. It has been 10 years since Frank Allen and Larry Wiseman first hatched the idea that taking journalists away from their desks, providing them opportunities to visit fishing boats, timber mills, cattle ranches, scientific labs, and working farms—all the while talking to experts from every side of these complex issues—would lead to a more informed, more balanced kind of reporting.

Since then, there is no question that IJNR, like every non-profit, has had its rough patches, particularly over the last two years during a difficult fundraising climate. But consider all that we have achieved. Since 1995, IJNR has organized 28 institutes in places as diverse as western Montana, coastal Maine, Chesapeake Bay, the Columbia River, coastal Georgia, the Great Lakes, San Francisco Bay and Alaska. IJNR has hosted 378 fellows, coming from news outlets as influential as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and CNN, and from those of modest means yet also vital to their local communities, such as the Times Argus in Montpelier, Vermont, the Tidelands News in Swansboro, North Carolina, and the Shiwi Messenger in New Mexico’s Zuni Pueblo.

We have raised $5.7 million from more than 150 foundations, non-profits, government agencies and industry groups. We have helped young reporters grow and move to larger papers. We have taught graduate students, steering them toward careers in journalism. We have built new relationships between journalists and scientists, business leaders and government representatives. And we have inspired, educated and re-charged the batteries of veteran reporters at a time when, because of corporate cuts and demands for ever-higher profit margins, they need our support more than ever.

We have continued to excel in our core mission. Again this year, we hosted three institutes in three time zones, while expanding our mentoring program. IJNR’s Stegner Initiative Report (Matching the Scenery: Journalism’s Duty to the North American West) has been distributed widely. It was the subject of several news articles, most notably a cover story in High Country News, the influential chronicle of western resource issues that is read by every major national environment writer.

Not far away from here, 50 years ago, a biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service bought a piece of land on Southport Island, Maine. She had been an English major, who through a love of wild places switched her major in college and graduated from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore with a degree in zoology. She was hired by the former US Bureau of Fisheries to record seven-minute radio spots called "Romance Under the Waters" that explained marine biology to the public in the 1930s. In her spare time, she wrote articles, and had a steady number published in the Atlantic magazine, the Baltimore Sun and other publications.

Her passion was explaining the natural world to a wider public—similar to many of IJNR’s fellows. She wrote books, and eventually earned enough money by 1952 to become a writer full-time. It was during her summers on the Maine Coast that … Rachel Carson… long troubled by the devastating effects of post-World War II pesticides such as DDT and malathion on fish and bird populations, helped formulate the ideas for what would become the landmark book of Twentieth Century environmental journalism.

When that book, Silent Spring, was published in 1962, Carson came under withering attack from Monsanto and other chemical companies, and from several prominent news outlets, such as TIME magazine, which called her irrational and alarmist. But the book became a runaway best seller, and led to congressional hearings. By 1972, two years after he had created the EPA and signed the Clean Air Act, Richard Nixon banned DDT. Since then, populations of species like the bald eagle and brown pelican have grown more than tenfold and the birds have been removed from the endangered list. The country is a healthier, more robust place because of Rachel Carson’s writing.

What Carson demonstrated—that thoughtful writing on complex environmental topics can have a profound effect on society—is what IJNR seeks to continue today, and in my view, achieves better than any other organization in the United States. It is why are here today. And it is why Frank and Andrew have spent the last nine days on boats and dairy farms, with lobstermen and biologists and the owners of a family-run sawmill, with 14 reporters in tow, all scribbling in their notepads. We all should be proud to be part of it.

• Ron Brochu, City Editor,
  Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, Minnesota
• Rachael Ehrenberg, Freelance Contributor, Great Lakes Radio Consortium, Marquette, Michigan
• Eric Fidler, Environment Reporter,
  The Associated Press, Chicago, Illinois
• John Flesher, Correspondent,
  The Associated Press, Traverse City, Michigan
• Celeste Headlee, Reporter,
  WDET Public Radio, Detroit, Michigan
• Steve Kuchera, Reporter, Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, Minnesota
• Konnie LeMay, Editor, Lake Superior Magazine, Duluth, Minnesota

• Patty Murray, Reporter, Wisconsin Public Radio, Green Bay, Wisconsin
• Denise Proulx, Contributor,
  Recto Verso Magazine, Montreal, Québec
• Peter Rebhahn, Reporter, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Green Bay, Wisconsin
• Susan Lampert Smith, Columnist, Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Wisconsin
• Debbi Snook, Reporter, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio
• David Steinkraus, Reporter, The Journal Times, Racine, Wisconsin
• Melanie Warner, Contributor, The New York Times, New York, New York

In Memory of a Great Friend
Kirby Beam, Founding Board Member and Southern Gentleman

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Kirby Beam died at home in Savannah on a Sunday morning, surrounded by members of his family. He was 65. The IJNR community will miss him for many reasons.

Kirby was a Southern gentleman and a conservationist in the best sense of those terms. Gracious and generous, he derived deep satisfaction from practicing sustainable forestry. He and his wife Lynda spent much of their life together taking care of several hundred acres of diverse woodlands along a tributary of the Savannah River. Beginning in the 1990s, they repeatedly received state and national recognition for their stewardship efforts.

In the summer of 1996, the Beams came out to Montana to take part in an early version of the High Country Institute—the prototype journalism adventure that evolved into IJNR. Soon after the Montana trip, Kirby became a founding board member. He did a lot to help the infant organization start to grow. His guidance was concise, good-natured and invariably wise.

Since 1999, more than 60 IJNR Fellows have enjoyed the uncommon hospitality of Kirby and Lynda at the family’s fourth-generation tree farm. During these visits, Fellows walked among loblolly and longleaf pines. They learned from Kirby about forest ecology and stewardship techniques. They admired his collection of old but well-kept tractors, caught glimpses of wild turkeys, and heard frogs in the cypress groves. They also ate well. Kirby was partial to catfish stew, roasted pig and hominy grits. He made the grits from scratch.

In 1997, IJNR established the Guerry Beam Fellowship, honoring the memory of Kirby and Lynda’s son, a devoted naturalist and thoughtful writer who had been killed in a car accident as a young man. To date, IJNR has chosen nine journalists to be Guerry Beam Fellows.

Upon Kirby's retirement from the board in 2002, IJNR returned to the tree farm with another group of Fellows in tow. During supper, Andrew Weegar and Frank Allen presented Kirby with a special award for his exceptional service to IJNR.

"I worked closely with Kirby to plan three of IJNR's programs in the Southeast," recalls Andrew. "He was the embodiment of quiet dignity: It's not enough to say that Kirby was respected by all sides in the forestry discussion. He was genuinely admired by all sides."

Many people have vivid memories of times shared with the Beams. For the members of the IJNR staff, one in particular was an unforgettable night at the tree farm during the 2001 Low Country Institute. As the Fellows finished dinner, they raised their glasses in a spontaneous toast of appreciation.

Kirby responded with a surprise: He and Lynda led the group in a gentle burning of needles that covered the ground beneath several acres of pine trees. The 14 Fellows formed an oval perimeter in the dark, standing at the ready with rakes and shovels. Kirby weaved a path among them, drip torch in hand, igniting a ring of fire that crept calmly inward. Fragrances of the night were soothing. The fire's rich, orange glow magnified the dark, happy silhouettes of the Fellows.

"For me, and I suspect for many others, that night’s shared experience is still alive," says Frank Allen. "Nothing can ever take it away. I hope it can help us all to hold close the spirit of a dear and great friend."