The Society of Environmental Journalists is pleased to announce the winners of the Outstanding Feature Reporting category (large and small markets) of the 2023 SEJ Awards for Reporting on the Environment .

FIRST PLACE, SMALL

"Mobile Homes, the Last Affordable Housing Option for Many California Residents, Are Going Up in Smoke" by Anne Marshall-Chalmers for Inside Climate News

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "Journalist and fellow from the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism Anne Marshall-Chalmers investigates a much-overlooked aspect of the human and housing cost of wildfires in California. Her engrossing and beautifully crafted lede engages the reader from the very first line and sets the tone for a narrative that interweaves the personal and universal, as well as thoroughly researched facts about wildfires near mobile home communities. In Susan Gilbert, her main character, and in Gilbert’s friends and neighbors from Creekside Mobile Home Park, Marshall-Chalmers finds human beings whose situation and personal traumas easily speak to a situation similar to so many more communities in the U.S. The narrative voice and choices keep the reader captivated until the end and have us all asking questions that we may not have asked before."

Anne Marshall-Chalmers is a journalist who grew up in the Bay Area. For many years, though, she bounced around Tennessee and Kentucky while working as a reporter and audio producer. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Atlas Obscura, NPR, Inside Climate News, Civil Eats and other publications. She has reported on climate change, agriculture, public health, injustice, and the spaces where these topics intersect. She is a graduate of the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Currently, Anne is working on health and environment-related stories for The War Horse, a nonprofit newsroom focused on veteran and military issues. She was named an Association of Health Care Journalists–California Health Journalism fellow in 2023. In her spare time, Anne enjoys writing children’s stories and aspires to one day tackle fiction.



FIRST PLACE, LARGE

"What Do the Protectors of Congo's Peatlands Get in Return?" by Ruth Maclean (pictured) and Caleb Kabanda, with photography by Nanna Heitmann, for The New York Times

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "The piece was the most narratively driven and cinematic of all the entries, giving readers rich, fleshed out characters, vivid scenes and an urgent environmental and socioeconomic dilemma in which there are no easy answers. The exhaustive and detailed reporting, flecked with moments of dark humor, was complimented with great aerial and video components — readers felt like they were in the village, grappling with a thorny, high-stakes issue that's both global and local. 'Peatlands' was at once satisfying in its execution of a narrative arc and left the jurors hungry for more."

Ruth Maclean is the West Africa bureau chief for the New York Times. Previously she worked for the Guardian and The Times of London, reporting from Africa, Europe and Latin America for 15 years. She aims to provide nuanced coverage of the 25 countries she covers, with a focus on the people living in them.

SECOND PLACE, SMALL

"Clever Whales and the Violent Fight for Fish on the Line" by Nick Rahaim for Hakai Magazine

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "Journalist and fisherman Nick Rahaim made several bold choices in this article: writing in first person, reporting on an industry in which he also works and publishing a lengthy feature on a somewhat niche topic. He made every one of these choices work. While this piece of journalism captures readers' attention from the lede on, it doesn't shy away from making them learn. Employing smart sourcing, well-timed personal recollections and insightful academic literature, Rahaim must be commended for the balance he strikes that allows readers to leave the story both informed as well as engaged."

SECOND PLACE, LARGE

"The Tragedy of North Birmingham" by Max Blau for ProPublica

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "In this comprehensive, deeply reported story of prolonged injustice, the reporter deftly translates his years of following those gravely impacted by the Birmingham coke plants into a plot-driven narrative. Drone images and interactive maps complement the document-rich investigative reporting that undergirds this illuminating piece. The result is an intellectually engaging story which amplifies the residents' voices and describes their agency. The jurors were also impressed with the story's impact: three months after publication, the company was significantly fined."

THIRD PLACE, SMALL

"Another Green World" by Jessica Camille Aguirre for Harper's Magazine

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "Jessica Camille Aguirre, a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT, takes us on a wild journey of space exploration — but in the Arizona desert. She tells the story of amateur scientist Kai Staats, whose concern for humanity's survival on a planet that could run out of a number of crucial resources led him to first join the crew of Mars Desert Research Station and later start his own project: Space Analog for the Moon and Mars (SAM for short). Aguirre's prose is rich with minute details that bring her characters and their surroundings to life, right on the page. Her 'reader think' especially works to perfection — whenever the reader wonders about something, there Aguirre is, discussing that very point in the next line or paragraph."

THIRD PLACE, LARGE

"Los Olvidados de Hidalgo" by Carlos Carabaña, Omar Torres Bobadilla, Paul Ramírez, Enrique De La Mora, Berta Alfaro, Raymundo Mondragón, Cecilia Guadarrama, Daniel Cabrera, Eric Ruiz Esparza, Oswaldo Montañez, Joaquin Ortega, Thais Morales, Íñigo Arredondo Vera and Omar Sánchez De Tagle for N+. English translation (PDF)

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "The jurors were moved by the strong production of this otherwise shockingly unknown story. Through excellent use of archival footage, previously unreleased documents and powerful, heartbreaking imagery, this story shone a light on and gave voice to people living in and imperiled by an atrociously polluted environment."

FIRST HONORABLE MENTION, SMALL

"Blood Sport: The Fight To End the Indiscriminate Killing of Countless Wild Animals for Entertainment and Money in the United States" by Kim Frank for Earth Island Journal

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "Reporter Kim Frank takes us to West Texas to witness first-hand one of the nation's largest predator-killing contests, called Big Bobcat. She vividly describes the teams of heavily armed hunters whose mission is to shoot as many foxes, coyotes and bobcats as they can to qualify for prizes of up to $50,000. Frank explains how these blood sport competitions evolved from traditional efforts by ranchers to protect their livestock from predation. Her story includes a combination of expert opinion and anecdotal material, including a visit to a ranch where family members practice a more restrained form of predator management."

FIRST HONORABLE MENTION, LARGE

"What's the Correct Color of a Bee?" by Denise Hruby for The New York Times

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "Chilling echoes of history and layers of absurdity haunt this story about the 'proper' hue of bees. The jurors were astonished and horrified — 'punched in the face' — by the originality of this journalist's shoe leather reporting, which exposed how Nazi ideology, eugenics and racism are threatening the survival of certain bees."

SECOND HONORABLE MENTION, SMALL

"Inches From Extinction: Time Is Running Out To Protect the Saltmarsh Sparrow and Its Critical Coastal Habitat From Rising Seas" by Alex Kuffner for The Providence Journal

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "In contrast to some vulnerable species such as elephants and polar bears, the saltmarsh sparrow attracts far less public attention, in part because its habitat is limited to a narrow swath of coastal marshland stretching from Virginia to Maine. In this compelling feature, reporter Alex Kuffner explains why this reclusive bird might be among the first species to disappear as sea levels rise in response to global warming, and why we should care. His story calls attention to the broader impacts of climate change and human encroachment on coastal wetlands."

SECOND HONORABLE MENTION, LARGE

"The Arctic Revolution That's Changing Climate Science" by Danielle Bochove for Bloomberg Green

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "This story illuminated varieties of knowledge — academic and Indigenous — demonstrating that all of society is endangered when ancestral knowledge of the Arctic environment is not included in the search for ways to address and adjust to climate change. Complemented with stark imagery and descriptive scenes, this piece explores how, in addition to other industries, traditionally trained scientists are also guilty of extractive practices."

THIRD HONORABLE MENTION, SMALL

"Queering the Family Farm: Despite Obstacles, LGBTQ Farmers Find Fertile Ground in Midwest" by Bennet Goldstein for Wisconsin Watch/Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "Reporter Bennet Goldstein took on a topic of identity and a historically disadvantaged community and side-stepped common pitfalls and generalizations. Instead, he deftly wove together personal moments, insights into politics, discussion of a key industry and research while consistently making smart narrative choices that kept the piece moving briskly. Additionally, the way in which he told the story of 16 Midwestern LGBTQ producers with compassion and without flattening them into a monolith can not be overlooked."

THIRD HONORABLE MENTION, LARGE

"The World's First Fair-Trade Psychedelic" by Rachel Nuwer for National Geographic

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

• "This is a beautifully written, far-reaching piece describing the intersection of addiction, nature and business. The mismanagement of a miracle drug holds ethical consequences at a global scale. The judges admired this article's originality and elevation of a complex issue."

The SEJ Awards for Reporting on the Environment is the world's largest and most comprehensive environmental journalism competition. This year, 589 entries in 10 categories were judged by independent volunteer panels of journalists and professors. Thank you, judges and screeners, and congratulations to all of the winners!

JOIN US! We will be announcing the winners of each category weekly, leading up to the live announcement of the Nina Mason Pulliam Award and $10,000 grand prize on November 16 from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. ET at the George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C. during our annual Journalists' Guide to Environment and Energy. Register to attend in person or virtually.