The Power of Biodiversity Reporting

Benji Jones examines a Malaise trap. Photo Credit: Neel Dhanesha

One of BAND’s central objectives is to help reconnect people to nature and instill a sense of awe and wonder at the diversity of life that exists all around us no matter where we live. One way we do this is by supporting high quality, biodiversity-focused journalism. We fund nature-based reporting at The Guardian, bioGraphic, Yale e360, High Country News, Food & Environment Reporting Network, and other outlets, including Vox Media. It was wonderful to see Vox and biodiversity reporter Benji Jones featured recently in the NiemanLab’s journalism industry newsletter.  Benji’s series on searching for cryptic insects in Central Park exemplifies the kind of reporting we aim to back. 

In part, the inspiration for Benji’s series came from an eye-catching paper recently published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences that posits the number of insect species in the world at more than double or triple the current estimate of 6 million. This dramatic shift builds off the pioneering use of DNA barcoding to uncover new species in Costa Rica’s Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, work undertaken by Dr. Dan Janzen, one of the world’s pre-eminent biologists and a longtime BAND grantee.