Environmental journalism is the collection, verification, production, distribution and exhibition of information regarding current events, trends, and issues associated with the non-human world.
While the practice of nature writing has a rich history that dates back at least as far as the exploration narratives of Christopher Columbus, and follows tradition up through prominent nature writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in the late 19th century, John Burroughs and John Muir in the early 20th century, and Aldo Leopold in the 1940s, the field of environmental journalism did not begin to take shape until the 1960s and 1970s.
Today, academic programs are offered at a number of institutions to train budding journalists in the rigors, complexity and sheer breadth of environmental journalism Environmental journalism plays a vital role in addressing global crises like climate change and biodiversity loss, educating the public and holding policymakers accountable.
However, it is a high-risk profession, as journalists often face threats while reporting from remote and hazardous locations on issues such as deforestation and pollution.
[1] Over the past 15 years, the 2024 UNESCO report documents a concerning rise in attacks on environmental journalists worldwide, with 749 incidents, including 44 murders, of which only five resulted in convictions.
The report identifies state and private actors, as well as criminal groups, as major sources of these threats, which severely undermine the dissemination of essential environmental information.
"In essays of experience, the author's firsthand contact with nature is the frame for the writing," as with Edward Abbey's contemplation of a desert sunset (Lyon 23).
It "involves translating the technical language of a natural science or related field into terms and ideas that people who aren't scientists can readily understand.
Environmental interpretation is pleasurable (to engage an audience in the topic and inspire them to learn more about it), relevant (meaningful and personal to the audience so that they have an intrinsic reason to learn more about the topic), organized (easy to follow and structured so that main points are likely to be remembered) and thematic (the information is related to a specific, repetitious message) (Ham 8–28).
Often, environmental literature is understood to espouse care and concern for the environment, thus advocating a more thoughtful and ecologically sensitive relationship of man to nature.