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SEJ Post-Conference Tour:

North America's
Great Lakes

October 7-10, 2018

Northern MichigaN

The Great Lakes represent 20 percent of the world’s available fresh surface water, but this incredible resource is challenged in a number of ways. The 2018 SEJ post-conference tour, organized and presented by IJNR, explored environment and natural resource issues in northern Michigan, where lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron come together.

Stops on the tour included

  • A visit to Camp Anishinaabek, where water protecters are protesting Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline

  • Meeting with Enbridge officials and learning about their Mackinaw Pump Station

  • Watching the daily catch come in while discussing the Great Lakes commercial fisheries

  • Paddling along the Lake Superior shoreline and talking about tourism and development pressures on Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

  • Meeting with residents in the Garden Peninsula to hear the contentious talk of Great Lake wind power development

  • Discussion of the Great Lakes Compact and how it protects the world's largest freshwater system as other regions struggle with water shortage.

  • Learning from Michigan scientists about how climate change is hindering the state's moose reintroduction.

  • A visit to the Soo Locks, the world's largest lock and dam system, to hear about the Great Lakes' role in the nation's steel and farm economies.

The mission of  the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources is to advance public understanding and civic engagement about environment, natural resource, public health and development issues through better journalism. IJNR conducts expenses-paid, expedition-style training and professional development programs for journalists at all career stages and from all sorts and sizes of news outlets, ranging from newspapers and magazines to radio, television and online operations. 

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This Institute is funded by the Joyce Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and by other foundations and individuals. 

  

IJNR maintains editorial independence and control in all of its programming and decision-making.