Ep 10: How to tell slow burn environmental stories

This episode focuses on the importance of environmental storytelling, emphasizing the need to go beyond surface-level reporting and explore deeper narratives that connect individual experiences to broader community and global contexts. Prem and Arati discuss various aspects of crafting compelling environmental stories, including research methods, data collection, and narrative techniques, while highlighting the significance of incorporating historical perspectives and indigenous knowledge. They also stress the importance of balancing crisis narratives with stories of resilience and community solutions, encouraging listeners to contribute to environmental storytelling by sharing their local experiences.

Show Notes:

2:27: Arati Kumar-Rao's reportage from the Thar desert: https://www.peepli.org/stories/miracle-of-sky-river/ and https://www.peepli.org/project/freshwater/

25:46: Engineering a Season of Floods by Amitangshu Acharya: https://flows.hypotheses.org/4151

36:45: When a River Runs Dry: https://www.peepli.org/stories/when-rivers-run-dry/

37:34: Farakka Barrage and The Nowhere People: https://dialogue.earth/en/climate/photo-essay-the-nowhere-people/

49:35: River At The Heart of the World -- reporting from Arunchal: https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/river-at-the-heart-of-the-world/

52:16: A Flash of Fin, a Glimmer of Hope -- Indus Dolphins in Harike: https://www.peepli.org/stories/indusdolphins/

1:08:27: The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics: https://www.amazon.in/DC-Comics-Guide-Writing/dp/0823010279/

1:12:21: Hunting With Dolphins: https://orionmagazine.org/article/hunting-with-dolphins/

1:26:39: The Measure of Things: https://www.themeasureofthings.com/

1:31:14: Blind Men and The Desert -- the story of the Indira Gandhi canal in Rajasthan: https://www.peepli.org/stories/blind-men-and-the-desert/

1:32:26: Disha, Calcutta-based organisation: https://dishaearth.org/fishing-communities/

1:45:12: Scroll down for the text from DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics: https://prempanicker.wordpress.com/category/to-read

A short list of books on environmental reporting:

What Is Sustainable Journalism? by Peter Berglez: Explores the intersection of journalism with sustainability issues, emphasizing ethical and practical approaches. 

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner: A classic on water policy and environmental history, often cited as essential for aspiring environmental journalists. 

Game Wars by Marc Reisner: Focuses on wildlife enforcement and poaching, providing real-world examples of investigative environmental reporting. 

Best Books Featuring Environmental Reporting

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson: The seminal work on pesticide dangers that sparked the modern environmental movement. 

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert: Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on mass extinctions driven by human activity. 

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein: Investigative analysis of climate change and economic systems. 

The Overstory by Richard Powers: A novel blending fiction with real environmental reporting on deforestation and activism 

Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard: Groundbreaking research on forest ecosystems presented through narrative journalism. 

Marginlands by Arati Kumar-Rao: Explores distressed landscapes across the sub-continent

Contact us:
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From The Marginlands on Instagram