For those of you who do not already know, I leave this Thurs., Dec. 1, for two-and-a-half months traveling across the South Pacific. I'm supported by a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, a prize given out each year to the top few graduating students at the Columbia University School of Journalism, where I just finished a dual-degree program in Earth and Environmental Science Journalism. I'm there to work on a range of environmental and adventure stories in Fiji, Nauru, Vanuatu and Tuvalu. This blog will be a way to keep everyone--friends, family, colleagues, editors--apprised of my progress, to tell a few interesting stories and hopefully to show you all a few pretty, and perhaps not-so-pretty, pictures.


Fiji will be my base. From there I will be speaking with regional environmental organizations and groups, as well as working with the journalism program at the University of the South Pacific, which is eager to explore the idea of adding environmental journalism to their curriculum.

On Dec. 13, I will travel to Nauru. Once among the richest countries per capita in the world, Nauru is now among the poorest. The mined phosphate on which they had built their wealth is almost gone, taking the health of the island with it. Inch-for-inch, it is the most environmentally ravaged country in the world. After a return swing through Fiji, I will go on to Vanuatu on Jan. 5. There, I plan to write about diving on World War II wrecks. After another turn through Fiji, I will travel to Tuvalu on Jan. 23. Tuvalu is famous for two reasons: the country is so close to sea level that climate change might make it uninhabitable, and because the Tuvaluans made millions from selling ".tv", their national Internet suffix. They have a number of other environmental issues to contend with, and I will be exploring some of these. Finally, I will return to Fiji for a week on Feb. 9 to work with the university and, time permitting, dive some of their highly regarded reefs.

Please feel free to post comments here or email me at the address on my personal website (which is listed in the links to the right). I should have Internet access the whole time I am gone, so I plan to post here every couple of days at least.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me so far.

Hello folks, and welcome to my new blog.

I'm sort of in uncharted territory here, but I've been convinced--by Sree Srinivasan--that this will be a good way to keep everyone, from editors and sources to family and friends, apprised of my reporting trip to the South Pacific.

I'm leaving Dec. 1, so I am not sure how much I will update the blog before then, but once the trip starts I will try to post stories, observations, descriptions and photos every couple of days.

More to come ...