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Dear Climate Monitor reader,
My name is Delger Erdenesanaa, and I’m joining The Maine Monitor this month as your new environment reporter. I’ll be reporting widely across the environment beat, explaining and investigating the most pressing energy, water, forestry, fisheries and pollution issues of the day.
And of course I’ll closely follow one of the biggest issues of them all: climate change. I’ll explore how rising temperatures are reshaping not just the state’s landscapes and seascapes, but also the ways Mainers live and work.
Most recently, I worked at Chemical & Engineering News in Washington, D.C., covering state and federal policy on chemicals in food, agriculture and water. For my last hurrah there, I went to the U.S. Supreme Court to cover a case about how pesticides get regulated when states and the federal government disagree about their risks.
Previously, I’ve reported for the Pulitzer Center, The New York Times, the Texas Observer and Inside Climate News. Last year, I took a deep dive into climate change and the ocean, including tracing how a marine heat wave from 15 years ago is still affecting wildlife and fisheries in the Gulf of Maine.
I learned immensely from all these experiences. But lately I’ve been missing more local, on-the-ground reporting. I want my work to meet a real need in people’s lives for trustworthy information about the issues that affect them most immediately.
Stepping into this role at The Monitor feels like coming full circle. I first came to Maine at age 16, when I got the opportunity to attend the Maine Coast Semester program at Chewonki in Wiscasset. I had grown up in Massachusetts after immigrating to the United States with my family from Mongolia as a young child.
Getting an immersive environmental education in the woods and salt marshes of Maine through this high school program expanded my horizons and, in a way, set my life’s trajectory. I went on to study Earth and oceanographic science at Bowdoin College, and worked for a while at an international environmental policy organization in Washington, D.C., before becoming a journalist.
I’m thrilled to be returning to Maine, and hope I can make a meaningful contribution in my small way to this state that has given me so much.
If you have any questions, suggestions or tips, please feel free to get in touch at delger@themainemonitor.org. And if you would like to support this work, please consider making a donation to The Monitor.
Sincerely,
Delger |
