Topic
Our Impact
FERN Looks at Dark Side of Seaweed Farming
In "Climate savior or ‘Monsanto of the sea’?," Bridget Huber digs deep into seaweed farming, which is being hyped as a major weapon in the fight against climate change. But skeptics say the rush to build industrial-scale operations risks unintended …
The Case of the Shrinking Salmon
In "Trouble at sea," a story published in partnership with bioGraphic, Miranda Weiss explores the reasons why Pacific salmon are shrinking in size. Hatchery salmon, from the booming aquaculture industry, routinely escape into the ocean, where they compete with wild …
Why Pricey Scallops Couldn’t Save a Mexican Fishing Village
In “White gold fever,” an audio story produced with Snap Judgment, Esther Honig details how the discovery of a massive bed of callo de hacha, a prized scallop, could have saved a struggling Mexican fishing village. But it didn't work …
FERN Digs into a Long Running-Dispute on Water Management
In “Epic floods in Pacific Northwest revive long-running dispute over how to manage a river,” published with Mother Jones, Teresa Cotsirilos, details how climate change has caused the water levels of rivers like the Nooksack to become erratic and less …
How Climate Change is Behind Bristol Bay’s Salmon Boom
In “One Alaska bay is booming with salmon, for now,” published with The Atlantic, Miranda Weiss describes how scientists believe that climate change is boosting salmon numbers in Bristol Bay, even as warming temperatures and other factors seem to be …
FERN Takes Us into Spain’s ‘Micro-Reserves’
In “Europe’s butterflies are vanishing as small farms disappear,” published with National Geographic, Bridget Huber shows us that industrial farms and abandoned ones are both bad for butterflies. So researchers in Spain are trying to combat the trend, one 'micro-reserve' …
FERN Story Helps Push Chinese Tuna-Fishing Firm to Withdraw Its IPO Application
Shannon Service’s October 2014 story in The Guardian on the “shady dealings” of a massive Chinese tuna-fishing firm had real-world impact. Notorious for going after threatened species like Yellowfin and Bigeye, the China Tuna Industry Group was forced to withdraw its IPO application after negative media …
We Connect Chefs to Oceans
In February 2013, we produced our first story in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle, about the booming herring population in the San Francisco Bay following a near collapse in 2009. The boom was being supported by Bay Area chefs who were serving …
Tracing the Path to a Dead Zone
In “A River Runs Through It,” reporter Paul Greenberg, author of The New York Times bestseller Four Fish, explained how the hypoxic “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is the result of U.S. agricultural practices. Greenberg went on to explore some of the …
Our Reporting on Oceans and Freshwater
