https://www.moira-donovan.com/writing-radio daily 0.75 2026-03-30 https://www.moira-donovan.com/about daily 0.75 2022-04-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6263145d7cce6b4ea6aeb0ac/5799e69b-1d82-4239-bb2d-5fce62f53d13/IMG_0454.jpeg about - Hello I’m a multimedia science journalist based on the East Coast of Canada, where I write about environmental and human rights issues, particularly in the Atlantic region. This work has taken me deep into hemlock forests, up to my knees in tidal saltmarsh mud, and to the decks of fishing boats, investigating invasive species, fisheries management and climate adaptation and mitigation. I’ve taught in France, studied philosophy and public policy UK and interned at a publication in the US, and now call Halifax, Nova Scotia — in ancestral and unceded Mi’kmaq territory — home. Interested in a collaboration? Get in touch: e: moira.elizabeth.donovan@gmail.com t: @moiradonovan https://www.moira-donovan.com/audio daily 0.75 2026-03-30 https://www.moira-donovan.com/portfolio-1 daily 1.0 2025-01-27 https://www.moira-donovan.com/portfolio-1/the-artificial-lake-tearing-apart-a-nova-scotia-communit monthly 0.5 2025-01-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6263145d7cce6b4ea6aeb0ac/3442ce1c-f81a-4abb-877e-1080dedf95cb/narhwal+iii.jpg https://www.moira-donovan.com/portfolio-1/project-six-xpa2w monthly 0.5 2025-01-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6263145d7cce6b4ea6aeb0ac/a7300672-6399-4b58-9775-2e026e192ca0/Infestedhemlock.jpg welcome - How Do You Kill an Invasive Species? - How Do You Kill an Invasive Species? Bring In a Bigger, Meaner Species to Eat It (The Walrus) In Southwestern Nova Scotia, one morning in late July, forester Mary Jane Rodger picked up a hemlock branch clipped from the towering canopy overhead and leaned in close to examine a fleck of white on its delicate dark-green needles. She was on the lookout for signs of a killer—one that now puts all of the province’s hemlocks at risk. Eastern hemlocks, with their narrow trunks and scaly bark, don’t have the obvious majesty of Western red cedars, but stands like this one create their own magic: a permanent cool twilight, a moss-carpeted microclimate that shelters everything from migrating birds to brook trout. In Nova Scotia, where much of the province has been logged since the arrival of Europeans, long-lived hemlocks make up a significant part of the sliver of old-growth forest that remains, spared by their low commercial value and ability to grow in hard-to-reach areas like the banks of rivers. Yet, having made it to the twenty-first century, these survivors are now threatened by a tiny menace lurking on their branches. In search of this threat, Rodger held the branch close to her face. “It’s just sap,” she concluded after a moment’s inspection. Rodger was looking for the egg sacs of a tiny sap-sucking insect known as the hemlock woolly adelgid. The sacs, which are the most visible sign of the adelgid’s presence, look like many things: cotton wool, spider eggs, bird poop. “It’s this weird dichotomy because it’s like a treasure hunt,” Rodger says—except, in this case, “you don’t really want to find what you’re looking for.” https://www.moira-donovan.com/portfolio-1/project-five-3yz3d monthly 0.5 2025-01-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6263145d7cce6b4ea6aeb0ac/a01eb510-75f2-4e7d-a3d2-86cf2d5bc456/Marsh+restoration+I+%281%29.jpeg welcome - Breaching Tradition - Breaching tradition: Salt marshes replacing Nova Scotia's dikes (CBC’s Atlantic Voice) Dikes were first deployed by Acadian settlers in the 17th century to transform tidal wetlands in the Bay of Fundy into agricultural fields. Their efforts created some of the most fertile farmland in the Maritimes. Over time, important infrastructure such as roads, rail links and entire communities took advantage of the protection offered by dikes. With climate change, sea levels are rising faster than dikes can be topped up. That challenge is compounded by the fact dikes are also subsiding. As researchers, government officials and citizens look at new ways to protect Nova Scotia's coastal communities, one marsh near the border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick represents the new reality on a coastline that hasn't changed for hundreds of years. The roughly 15-hectare patch of marsh along the Missaguash River in Fort Lawrence, N.S., used to be farmland. Now, it's one of two pilot sites for a new method of coastal protection. Here, rather than building the dike higher to keep the sea at bay, researchers are letting the water flow through. "These were areas that were previously identified as areas at high risk and high vulnerability," said Danika Van Proosdij, one of the lead researchers on a project called Making Room for Wetlands. "And the cost of maintaining a dike in these places was prohibitive, but also was not possible ... because the trajectory of erosion was increasing." https://www.moira-donovan.com/portfolio-1/in-cods-shadow-redfish-rise monthly 0.5 2025-01-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6263145d7cce6b4ea6aeb0ac/2e3e5d9e-d3fc-467d-b734-063428e75a21/underwater-redfish-2048x1153.jpg https://www.moira-donovan.com/portfolio-1/all-the-fish-we-cannot-see monthly 0.5 2025-01-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6263145d7cce6b4ea6aeb0ac/b6a00c4b-605b-4f92-9f9a-35eecc8b9909/telescopefish-mesopelagic-fish-and-carbon.jpg https://www.moira-donovan.com/portfolio-1/can-the-sea-soak-up-our-excess-carbon-dioxide monthly 0.5 2025-01-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6263145d7cce6b4ea6aeb0ac/cdb0b16f-fd11-4f95-9617-2ab0fd411577/alkaline-testing+copy.jpg