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Marc Fawcett-Atkinson

Marc Fawcett-Atkinson

Journalist | Vancouver | English French
About Marc Fawcett-Atkinson

Marc Fawcett-Atkinson is a reporter and writer covering food systems, climate, disinformation, and plastics and the environment for Canada’s National Observer.

His ongoing investigations of the plastic industry in Canada won him a Webster Award's nomination in environmental reporting in 2021. He was also a nominee for a Canadian Association of Journalists's award for his reporting on disinformation.

Marc has previously written for High Country News, the Literary Review of Canada, and other publications on topics exploring relationships between people and their social and physical environments.

He holds an M.A. in journalism from the University of British Columbia and a B.A. in Human Ecology from the College of the Atlantic.

402 Articles

Meet the Ukrainian scientists making farms sustainable from space

Around midafternoon in Kyiv on Jan. 3, Oleksandr Dzhevaga watched from his computer as a rocket blasted through the sky. Although Dzhevaga lives in Ukraine, the rocket had nothing to do with Russia's war against the country. It was taking off from Florida, and onboard was a satellite custom-made to monitor the sustainability of millions of hectares of crops and forests worldwide. 

‘Better is always possible,’ Canada’s agriculture minister says, but there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to curbing climate pollution from farms

Several times last year, Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau found herself stomping through fields talking to farmers dealing with unprecedented floods, drought and hurricanes. The disasters were an "eye-opener" for many, hinting at a future where the climate crisis will make similar disasters more common — and worse. 

Farmers are losing the ‘arms race’ against weeds

Intensive farming is creating new super weeds that are nearly impossible to kill with herbicides. Already infamous for their impact on everything from water quality to biodiversity, the intensive approach to agriculture is making it even harder for farmers to protect their crops — and bottom lines — from tsunamis of harmful weeds, a new study suggests.

How a Canadian farmer partnered with ‘a force in the universe’ to save his family’s land

As countries gather in Montreal to hammer out a new deal to protect global biodiversity, farms like the Coens' could offer a blueprint for how we produce food in the future. Agriculture is the largest driver of biodiversity loss worldwide, with farming identified by the United Nations as a threat to 86 per cent of species at risk of extinction.