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Environment Reporting
A male quetzal sits on the stump of a tree
where he used to rest. The Indians cut the
tree down. Photo by © Natalie B. Fobes
1992.
happens in environments where animals
operate with their own set of
rules. As I sat cursing my luck, I recalled
the circuitous path I’d taken to
arrive at this place. Doing this work
was so very different from my newspaper
days of photographing spot news,
sports, politics and environmental portraits.
Becoming an Environmental
Photojournalist
In some ways, I have the Pacific salmon
to thank for this transition. My 10-year
project on salmon and the cultures
surrounding this fish catapulted me
from newspaper work to becoming a
freelance photographer for National
Geographic, Smithsonian and other
magazines. Along the way I received an
Alicia Patterson Foundation (APF) Fellowship
, the Scripps Howard Edward
J. Meeman Award, and was a finalist for
the Pulitzer Prize in specialized reporting.
In time, my photographs and words
about salmon were published in my
first book, “Reaching Home: Pacific
Salmon, Pacific People.”
Many editors consider me a nature
and wildlife photographer. I think of
myself as a photojournalist whose work
explores the increasingly complex relationship
between people and the
environment. In my salmon project,
the fish served as the thread that wove
together the many cultures around the
Pacific Rim. Documenting how humans
use and abuse the earth’s resources
was a critical theme in my coverage,
second only to the life history and
ecosystem importance of the salmon.
Even the story of the quetzal included
the native people, the Q’echi, their rich
culture, and the negative impact their
farming had on the bird’s dwindling
habitat.
Environmental stories are especially
challenging for a photojournalist to
tell. While a reporter can write an article
without cooperation from the subjects,
a photographer must have access
to do the story well. In the summer of
2001, I shot an assignment for Mother
Jones. The writer was looking at the
impact Atlantic salmon farms had on
wild Pacific salmon in British Columbia.
In the mid-1980’s entrepreneurs
For good luck, Pete Blackwell kisses the
first sockeye caught before throwing it
overboard in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Photo by
© Natalie B. Fobes 1991.
set up net pens in the bays of the
province. Rather than catch wild Pacific
salmon when they returned to the
rivers, these farmers would raise Atlantic
salmon, a non-native species, in salt
water pens and harvest them when the
market demanded. The Canadian government
saw it as one way to employ
out-of-work loggers.
Many environmental concerns had
been raised about farms during the 15
years that I’d been observing the
salmon. Some had proven true. But the
discovery that large numbers of sea lice
were attaching themselves to out-migrating
juvenile salmon swimming by
the farms was alarming. Just a few lice
could kill the two-inch long fish. Many
salmon were carrying more than a
dozen. Some scientists believed this
epidemic, if left unchecked, could
doom the region’s wild salmon. Based
on evidence from Europe, the researchers
suspected that the Atlantic salmon
farm net pens were inadvertent incubators
for the sea lice.
I contacted the salmon farm industry
association to request access to the
farms. They declined to help. Once I
Fobes created more than 500 flags bearing
her salmon photos and poems for
“Salmon in the Trees.” The exhibit
symbolizes the importance of salmon to
forests. Photo by © Natalie B. Fobes 2001.
Nieman Reports / Winter 2002 57