NARRAGANSETT, RI -- June 7, 2011 -- Sunshine Menezes, executive director of the Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting, and 2010 Grantham Prize winner Alanna Mitchell announced the 2011 winner of The Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment. James Astill of The Economist will receive US$75,000 for "The World's Lungs: Forests, and How to Save Them," a commanding 8-part special report on the state of global forests and the rising threats they face from human exploitation and climate change.
Grantham Prize Jurors described Astill's report as "meticulously researched and a thoroughly reported series deserving acclaim for spotlighting forests as an often-misunderstood component of the international debate on climate change policy."
The announcement was made late this afternoon during the Capitol Hill Ocean Week Press Conference in Washington, DC. The announcement can be viewed at the official Capitol Hill Ocean Week web stream: http://www.ustream.tv/capitolhilloceanweek2011.
"It is our great pleasure to recognize James Astill's exhaustive coverage of the perils facing global forests and the innovative approaches toward conserving these critical habitats," said Sunshine Menezes, executive director of Metcalf Institute and Grantham Prize administrator. "We are also thrilled to announce this year's Grantham Prize winners at Capitol Hill Ocean Week, in partnership with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation."
James Astill's journalism career flourished while based in Nairobi covering much of Africa for the Guardian newspaper and The Economist. He won several awards for his dispatches from a dozen African wars. After moving to Islamabad to report on Pakistan and Afghanistan for the same publications, he joined the staff of The Economist in 2004 as defense and security correspondent. In this role, he covered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and global security. In 2007, he moved to New Delhi to be The Economist's South Asian Bureau Chief, where he has reported on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He has a particular interest in the environmental consequences of India's economic rise; he has written extensively on India's inefficient use of water and climate change policy. Astill took leave of his beat in June and July 2010 to travel and report on the world's forests. He has just recently moved to London, where he has been appointed The Economist's Industry Editor.
The Grantham Prize Jurors also selected two entries to receive Grantham Awards of Special Merit, each receiving a US$5,000 cash prize. The two 2011 Grantham Award of Special Merit recipients are: Jeff Goodell, author of "How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate," published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company; and The Associated Press' Investigative Journalism Team for their breaking news coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The AP team was comprised of Mike Baker, Seth Borenstein, Jason Bronis, Cain Burdeau, Feilding Cage, David Clark, Jeff Donn, Ron Harris, Michael Kunzelman, Tamara Lush, Rich Matthews, Holbrook Mohr, Richard T. Pienciak, Peter Prengaman, Justin Pritchard, Merrill Sherman and Mitch Weiss.
The Grantham Prize honors outstanding coverage of the environment, and recognizes reporting that has the potential to bring about constructive change. The Grantham Prize was established to encourage high quality environmental journalism in all media, while drawing attention to the subjects of the prize-winning stories, increasing public awareness and understanding of environmental issues. The Grantham Prize is awarded annually to nonfiction work published or aired in the United States or Canada during the previous calendar year.
Established in 2005, The Grantham Prize for Excellence in Environmental Reporting is funded by Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham through The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment and is administered by the Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. The Grantham Foundation supports environmental research and conservation programs internationally, while Metcalf Institute provides journalists with resources, tools, and field education to improve their reporting on scientific news and environmental issues.
This year marks the sixth anniversary of The Grantham Prize. Past winners of the prestigious Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment are: a 9-person team from The Record (Bergen County, NJ) in 2006 for Toxic Legacy; Kenneth Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling from the Los Angeles Times in 2007 for Altered Oceans; an 8-person team from The New York Times in 2008 for Choking on Growth; Blake Morrison and Brad Heath of USA TODAY in 2009 for The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America's Schools; and author Alanna Mitchell in 2010 for Sea Sick.
For support information, print quality photos, interviews, etc., please contact: Kat Anderson, kat@gso.uri.edu, 401-874-6009.
For more information regarding The Grantham Prize, please contact Metcalf Institute, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, Narragansett, RI, at 401-874-6009. The official website of The Grantham Prize is www.granthamprize.org.