Lana Cohen reports for The Mendocino Voice in Boonville, California, where she focuses on the effect of environmental regulation on salmon runs, wildfires, the economy and other issues. A reporter from Brooklyn, New York, Cohen covered the environment, conservation and climate politics during fellowships at WhoWhatWhy, an investigative newsroom, and the National Audubon Society. Her work explored everything from natural disasters to water rights to the newest green technology. She previously worked in public health and environmental justice communications with WE ACT for Environmental Justice in Harlem. At Colorado College, Cohen majored in environmental science and concentrated on weather and air quality.
Beat: The effect of environmental regulation on salmon runs, wild fires, the economy and other issues
Here on the North Coast our entire economy and way of life have long been structured around nature and the legacy of natural resource extraction. First with fishing, logging and ranching, later with cannabis, wine, and even carbon-credit sales. This means that environmental protection and regulatory agencies have a disproportionate impact on us, as do large logging, wine and ranching companies. Most of the environmental agencies are state agencies, and have been poorly examined by media. This beat involves covering board meetings with regular government reporting, breaking news on important policy shifts as well as environmental occurrences such as salmon run numbers and wildfires. It will also entail working on enterprise stories exploring deeper issues and engaging in some investigative pieces on the major corporations that control so much of our land and environment—focusing on the impacts to local residents but with a regional perspective.