ABSTRACT
The author of this chapter, who is a Ukrainian environmental journalist with eight years of experience in traditional and online media, communications, and environmental activism, begins her first-person account with a familiar refrain: “I was led to environmental journalism by two things, most notably the book by Rachel Carson Silent Spring and the film Erin Brockovich. These are two stories of exceptionally courageous women who still inspire me. … Of course, when I was covering the topic of climate change in a local newspaper, I was looked at as a freak.” Today, however, environmental reporting in Ukraine is on the increase. In 2016, a garbage landfill in Lviv caught fire, and “for the next six months, garbage collection suffered since local people who had landfills in their area blocked the road to garbage trucks. They were afraid that the fire might break out near their houses. The city was full of overloaded garbage containers for weeks. This made people think about how they could reduce the amount of waste. In the same year, the city council launched a new waste management strategy. This topic was on the front pages of all Ukrainian media for at least six months.” Environmental reporting had found its audience in Ukraine.
