I interviewed Jane Goodall - a hero of mine!

A young chimpanzee in the trees at the Budongo Forest in Uganda. Who is watching whom? 

Articles under the Mongabay Prize for Environmental Reporting grant I received have started coming out! This is a 6-month grant to report on tropical forest conservation that allowed me to travel to Uganda to report on some initiatives and projects there. Several more articles will be coming out, but here's a start!

If you have been following any sort of wildlife or science news, you may have seen that the legendary Dr. Jane Goodall turned 80 on April 3rd. On the Sunday before her birthday, I interviewed her by phone for Animal Planet's 80 Years of Jane online content. She was in Montreal about to fly to California, and it was so neat to hear her voice over the phone lines. Although mountain gorillas and not chimpanzees are my favorite animal, in high school I watched many a Jane Goodall National Geographic documentary, as well, and read her book In the Shadow of Man. I have the coolest job!

Here's a link to my Dr Jane Goodall Q&A for Animal Planet! I also did this longer piece for Animal Planet: 10 Reasons Why Everyone Should Love Jane Goodall! (If you scroll to the bottom of the first page there, you can click "show all on one page" so you don't have to click through one by one.)

But my favorite articles so far is published on CBS Smart Planet: How Jane Goodall’s legacy is alleviating poverty. This is about the Sustainable Livelihoods Project that I visited near Hoima, Uganda. Not long after I arrived in Uganda, I drove from Kampala to Budongo Forest Reserve with Peter Apell of the Jane Goodall Institute-Uganda, and got all those great quotes on that trip - he is a great interview. I spent a couple of days tracking chimps and such at Budongo, and then drove to the project in the field with JGI's Tomas Acidri, and interviewed one of the community villagers, Joram Basiima, whose photo appears in the article. I was impressed with the project and their approach. More articles from Uganda, and from the Mongabay grant, will be coming soon! Stay tuned!

I've been productive!

  The Habinyanja family group of mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Park, Uganda. Notice the green lips! I guess mountain gorillas like their lipstick green. :)  Photo Copyright (c) 2014 Wendee Nicole

Check out my first Mongabay blog post Reporter's Journal: The Forests of Uganda, posted today! I have pieces coming soon at Animal Planet Online, CBS Smartplanet.com, and Environmental Health Perspectives from my Uganda Adventures, but in the meantime several other articles on other topics have come out:

• Pig Poop Power: Scaling up waste-to-energy technology could transform the hog farming industry. Discover Magazine, Mar 2014. (the full article will not be online until May).


• BMW's Big Bet on Carbon Fiber. How carbon-fiber technology is transforming the auto industry, starting with the uber-cool BMW i-3! Solutions Journal (Rocky Mountain Institute). Spring 2014.


• A Question for Women's Health. Chemicals in Feminine Hygiene Products and Personal Lubricants (may not be safe...). Environmental Health Perspectives. PDF version. Mar 2014.

African safari wildlife

Took a day in Queen Elizabeth National Park on the way back to Entebbe from Bwindi, and saw many of the typical African wildlife and wanted to post a few photos!

Postcards from Uganda

I've been in Uganda more than a week and just wanted to post some of my favorite photos. I will give more information about each later, but... chimpanzees, mountain gorillas, the incredible Batwa (forest pygmy) Experience, and the sad state of their children at their homes, now, 20 some years after being evicted from Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

Christmas all over again :)

I love these two most precious humans!!! This is my new favorite picture of my kiddos. It is now my desktop on my laptop and tablet and phone! These photos are taken by and copyright by my daughter Savannah, check out her blog! As I'm leaving for Uganda shortly I don't have time for captions but… this was Christmas! It was great! Just a little too much pie :)

You can tell Skip is a real cat person :)