Environmental Journalism

Assignment Earth, Environmental Journalism, Environmental Protection, National Monuments / 20.08.2010

At Trackways National Monument, experts have excavated the best examples of Paleozoic era plants and animals on the planet. “These different types of fossils are the best preserved and the most significant of their kind in the world,” said Jerry MacDonald of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History. MacDonald has made his life’s work searching for and excavating prehistoric fossils in the Robledo Mountains just outside Las Cruces, New Mexico. His discoveries, starting in the early 1980s helped to establish the area as the 5,200-acre Trackways National Monument in 2009. “It’s a concentrated fossil deposit that not only has track-ways but it has petrified wood, fossil leaves, marine fossils, he said And all of these things represent a window to the past.” This public land in the American Southwest desert is one of the few places on Earth where evidence of the Permian period is exposed. The creatures who left these tracks in the mud almost 300 million years ago occupy a much different version of New Mexico.

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Assignment Earth, Destinations, Environmental Journalism, Environmental Protection / 11.08.2010

Among the rolling mountains of Southern New Mexico lies Fort Stanton Snowy River National Conservation Area. Once home to Billy the Kid, occupied by both Union and Confederate Armies, the Buffalo Soldiers and the Apache Mescalero tribe, its history and culture are rich. Today it remains largely as it existed 150 years ago, offering new opportunities above and below ground. Directly beneath this postcard New Mexico Landscape is fort Stanton Cave, an obscure recreational caving site since the 1960s. But in 2001 spelunkers investigating signs of additional caves revealed Snowy River Passage, an endless series of tunnels whose floors are lined with white calcite deposits, the longest formation of its kind in the world.
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Assignment Earth, Environmental Journalism, Environmental Protection, Interview / 27.07.2010

Field producers for Assignment Earth arguably have the coolest job in the world. Reporter Rebecca Huntington blends exploring wild places, her favorite pastime, with storytelling to educate the general public on events and issues at the forefront of environmental conservation. Born in Billings Montana, Rebecca, 38, now lives in Jackson, Wyoming. With a degree in Spanish and Journalism from the University of Montana and as a Ted Scripps fellow of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder she, brings a wealth of knowledge and training to her production work. Reporting for Assignment Earth since 2007 Rebecca connects with researchers and activists to offer viewers an on-the-ground perspective of efforts to protect and preserve the natural world. What follows is a Q&A interview conducted for Assignment Earth
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