(Photo: Vlad Sokhin) I’ve been travelling and storytelling from Papua New Guinea since 2009. I first visited for The Age/SMH, reporting on the catastrophic maternal death rate, and on the impacts of the then new and much hyped ExxonMobil-lead PNGLNG project in the highlands. On numerous return visits, I’ve circled back often to go deeper …
(Photograph: Angela Wylie) Over much of the past 15 years or so, I imagined I had developed two main ‘streams’ of storytelling expertise and networks. One could be broadly categorised as human rights, encompassing stories on health, disease, women and children, aid and development; the other was on climate science, often tracking scientists to their …
‘We were diving in dissolving reef … it was like diving in ectoplasm. It was awful’ – Prof Justin Marshall. In the June edition of The Monthly I have a long piece on the devastating coral bleaching now playing out on the Great Barrier Reef. At the same time as news emerges that the Australian … Continue reading
Five years after the alarm was raised on the drug resistant tuberculosis emergency in PNG, the worst fears of experts about its spread are being realised. I go back to Daru, the outbreak front line, for my debut as a radio journalist reporting for the ABC. Find the podcast here. Continue reading
A confronting story from Bougainville, PNG, where I have often reported on the crisis of maternal deaths (second highest in the Asia Pacific after Afghanistan). The news angle here the landmark case around the jailing of a couple for the termination of a pregnancy. But the background context is about the tragedy deaths in childbirth, … Continue reading
I’m thrilled to be the Editor of the next edition of NewSouth’s Best Australian Science Writing 2016 – the annual compendium of ripping reads from the scientific frontier. Find details here – and deadline for submissions is 31 March. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate and cultivate fine science storytelling, so show us your best, scribes. Continue reading
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been engaged as a “guest blogger” by the University of Melbourne to provide some guided commentary on its “Pursuit” communications platform around the Paris talks. Mostly the focus was to delve into the university’s in-house expert resource, but I had a long leash. After the Agreement, the blog … Continue reading
NOW UNLOCKED! Vojtech Novotny is a Czech entomologist who first travelled to Papua New Guinea 20 years ago. He came for the insects. He stayed for the people. Having heard much about him over the years, it was a thrill to visit his laboratory and field sites in Madang. The profile I’ve written is published in … Continue reading
I’ve been trying for several months to get back to PNG to do some on-the-ground reporting about the climate impacts playing out there – most urgently the whopping El Nino. Sadly I couldn’t get the budget or editorial interest – so this piece for The Guardian is the next best option, reporting long distance, relying … Continue reading
My second piece for Yale Environment 360, a website produced out of Yale University to showcase reporting, analysis, opinion and debate on environmental science. This article presents a snapshot of the state of solar in Australia, rounding up the policy and politics that have put solar units on so many Australian homes (highest proportion of … Continue reading
My first article for Cosmos, Australia’s premier popular science magazine. This is a profile of National Geographic “Explorer In Residence”, rock-star anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis, who recently visited Australia for some speaking engagements. Here we discuss his own journey, the value of culture, climate, and what anthropology can teach about conflict and a changing world. … Continue reading
A different take on Mother’s Day: In Papua New Guinea, where maternal deaths are amongst the highest in the world, 44 per cent of women of fertile age and in a relationship report an “unmet need” for contraception. That means they have little if any capacity to space, delay or stop having babies. My story for … Continue reading
Notebook & Narrative by Jo Chandler 