IJNR Expeditions and Activities for 2010

IJNR learning expeditions help reporters and editors at all career stages to gain perspective and understanding and to become better storytellers. Mid-career, early-career and veteran reporters and editors from a diverse range of newspapers, magazines, broadcast operations and on-line news organizations are chosen to participate. Journalists working for smaller organizations, including tribal and ethnic news media, are encouraged to apply. IJNR fellowship awards cover the costs of meals, lodging, chartered bus and all other field activities during the expeditions. In addition, some travel stipends are available.

These expenses-paid fellowships are designed for reporters and editors who aspire to produce deeper, more explanatory news coverage of issues that affect growth, economic development, rural communities, natural resources and the environment.

Funding for IJNR programs comes from a broad spectrum of charitable foundations, conservation and environment groups, state and federal government agencies, news-media groups, natural-resource companies and trade associations, as well as individual donors. (See IJNR's Sponsors page.)

Please review How To Apply for details on selection criteria, application materials and costs.

Great Waters Institute

This journey across the Lake Ontario watershed will explore ecologically significant areas in Ontario and New York. This program will start and end in Toronto. Fourteen journalists selected to be Great Waters Fellows will examine newsworthy issues of water, energy, climate, fisheries, shipping, shoreline development, runoff, endangered species recovery, and invasive-species control—issues that have relevance throughout the Great Lakes region:

Themes and Issues to Examine:

• A Major Water Challenge of Our Time: Managing Storm Runoff and Non-point Pollution in Metropolitan Areas
• Energy for the Great Lakes Economy: Pros and Cons of Coal, Hydro, Hydrokinetic, Geothermal and Wind (including off-shore facilities)
• Toxic Hot Spots: Regulation, Recovery and the Pace of Remediation
• Toxic Hot Spots: A Report Card on the Pace of Remediation in Great Lakes “Areas of Concern”
• Case Study of a Threatened Species: The American Eel
• Controlling Aquatic Invasive Species: Ballast Water Technology and Salt Water Shipping in the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway
• Effects of Water-Level Regulation on Wetland Habitat
• Water Diversions and the Future of the Great Lakes Compact
• The Comeback of a Charismatic Native: Restoring the Atlantic Salmon to Lake Ontario
• Adapting to Climate Change: The Predicted Effects of Global Warming on Shallow-Water Ecosystems in the Great Lakes Basin

Journalists accepted to participate in this program will start with an in-depth examination of the successes and failures of storm-water management and non-point runoff in the Greater Toronto Area, including a firsthand look at the latest technologies being implemented to control runoff, water quality and beach health in one of the largest cities in the Great Lakes region. The group will examine lessons learned in Toronto and the possibility of replicating these storm water technologies in metropolitan areas throughout the Great Lakes region.

Journalists will also examine contaminated sites at two key “Areas of Concern” in Lake Ontario, and they will revisit the pace and progress of remediation at these two toxic hotspots as well as dozens of similar sites on both sides of the international border. Journalists will hear leading scientists describe the latest recovery efforts for the American Eel, which, by some estimates, once constituted 40 percent of the fish biomass in Lake Ontario. Today the eel is a listed as “threatened” in the Province of Ontario. Fellows will meet shipping officials, scientists and environmentalists at one of the region's leading ports, as well as a key section of the Welland Canal, to discuss issues of ballast-water management and the latest technologies to prevent the introduction of aquatic invasive species to the Great Lakes ecosystem.

Also during the trip, Fellows will make a series of field visits to explore several renewable-energy platforms, either proposed or already implemented in the Lake Ontario watershed, that include geothermal, hydrokinetic, onshore and offshore wind facilities. They will head out onto the water with scientists who monitor the spread and effects of one of the latest exotic species to enter the Lake Ontario ecosystem. And they will strap on hip waders to accompany fish biologists as they walk into Lake Ontario tributaries to release juvenile Atlantic salmon as part of a multi-year restoration effort.

This program, led by Peter Annin, Frank Allen and Adam Hinterthuer, will be an intense, professional-development experience. IJNR will cover all field costs (such as meals, lodging, chartered bus and hired vessels) as part of each fellowship award. Journalists chosen to be Fellows will be expected to participate fully from start to finish.

Application materials (such as statement of interest, résumé, work samples and letters of recommendation) should be sent by email to contact(at)IJNR(dot)org or by regular mail to IJNR, P.O. Box 1996, Missoula, MT 59806. Please refrain from sending emails containing large attachments (such as big photo portfolios and similar mega-data documents) to avoid clogging and paralyzing IJNR’s mail box.

Great Waters Reunion Refresher Institute

This program is open only to IJNR Fellows who have participated in a previous Great Waters Institute. More information will be posted shortly.

IJNR Fellow Reunion Dinner at SEJ Annual Conference in Missoula, MT

At the home of Frank and Maggie Allen. Please write to Contact@IJNR.org to confirm your attendance or call Maggie at 406-273-3523. This event is open to all IJNR Fellows.

Mentoring

IJNR’s Mentoring program is open to all IJNR Fellows. If you would like to participate as a Mentor or Mentee, please contact Frank Allen at: or call 406-273-4626.