All FERN Articles

Fifty years later, a daunting cleanup of Vietnam’s toxic legacy

By Photography by Cuong Tran and George Black

In the thriving industrial city of Bien Hoa, about 20 miles east of Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, there is a large air base, just beyond a sweeping bend in the Dong Nai River. During the American war in Vietnam, it was said to be the busiest airport in the world. Since the… » Read More

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  • 4 MILLION ONLINE READERS PER YEAR
    Yale Environment 360

As oceans heat up, the types of seafood we eat will change

By Illustrations by Charlotte Knox

There is no better place to ogle California seafood, in all its bizarre bounty, than the Santa Barbara harbor on a Saturday morning. Vendors line City Pier alongside bobbing boats with names like New Hazard and Fishin’ Mission, their booths thronged by customers speaking a half-dozen languages. The wares at this fishermen’s market are as… » Read More

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  • 4 million monthly readers
    EatingWell

The Loophole: How American forests fuel the EU’s appetite for ‘green’ energy

By Photography by George Steinmetz

The smoke billows like cream in coffee off Lebanon Church road, above the pine stands and winter fallow, a sharp palette of blue and green and white. Heavy with trees and scraps from the surrounding forests of Northampton County, the trucks come and go all day long, downshifting here just before the Methodist  church and… » Read More

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    MORE THAN 80 MILLION UNIQUE USERS A MONTH

The herbicide dicamba is sparking a civil war in farm country

By and

In November 2018, FERN, in partnership with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, published Liza Gross’s story of how the Environmental Protection Agency ignored decades of independent science in deciding to approve new and expanded uses of the weedkiller dicamba on soybeans. Now we have the next installment of our dicamba story, a radio… » Read More

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    Reveal

After mega-dairy was shut down, Oregon lawmakers consider a moratorium on new operations

By

An estimated 30 million gallons of cow manure awaited cleanup on the former site of Lost Valley farm, a mega-dairy in Boardman, Oregon, when it was sold in February. The mess was an apt symbol of the yearlong, beleaguered tenure of what had been the state’s second largest dairy. Lost Valley was shut down by… » Read More

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    The Oregonian

As the heat rises, farmworkers band together

By Photography by Edgar Franks

Our climate is changing, and our approaches to activism and politics have to change with it. That’s why FERN, in partnership with The Nation,  launched Taking Heat, a series of dispatches from the front lines of the climate justice movement by journalist Audrea Lim. Lim explores the ways the communities that stand to lose the most… » Read More

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  • 1.3 million readers a month
    The Nation

What pesticide monitoring misses

By Photography by Todd Bigelow

Every year U.S. farmers use about a billion pounds of chemicals on crops, including the fruits, nuts and vegetables many parents beg their kids to eat. The Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration are charged with ensuring that these chemicals don’t endanger consumers, and both agencies test the food supply for pesticide residues… » Read More

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    New Food Economy

As coastal flooding surges, ‘living shorelines’ seen as the answer

By Photography by John Althouse

On August 27, 2011, Hurricane Irene crashed into North Carolina, eviscerating the Outer Banks. The storm dumped rain shin-high and hurled three-meter storm surges against the barrier island shores that faced the mainland, destroying roads and 1,100 homes. After the storm, a young ecologist then at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill named… » Read More

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    Scientific American
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