SELECTED ARTICLES
Peter Christie is a long-time journalist and the editor of Canadian Wilderness magazine. His feature writer stories and commentary have appeared in many national and international newspapers and magazines, including The Globe and Mail, Maclean's, The South China Morning Post and a variety of others.
"Dropping like flies" – Interview with Oliver Milman, Guardian science reporter and author of The Insect Crisis
– South China Morning Post
"From Gucci to Gap to Stella McCartney, how fashion is trying to be green and what more it needs to do" – Review of Circular By Design by various authors and edited by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
– South China Morning Post
"Saving the world with wonder" – An essay exploring exhortations to wonder about nature found in conservation writing from Silent Spring to the present
– South China Morning Post
"The cognitive dissonance in adoring pets while eating meat and ignoring wildlife extinction" – A review of How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World by Financial Times reporter Henry Mance
– South China Morning Post
"Palm oil, poster child for globalisation’s wrongs" – A review of Palm Planet by U.S.-based food writer Jocelyn C. Zuckerman
– South China Morning Post
“Canada’s polar bear capital is fighting to keep its orphan cubs” – Describes Churchill Manitoba's argument to stop shipping orphan polar bears to southern zoos
– Maclean’s
“Trump's attack on the American wilderness is our wake-up call” – Argues for a new Canadian conservation commitment in the face of American assault on parks (commentary)
– Globe & Mail
“Canada is banning foreign salamanders -- for good reason” – Describes Canada's new import ban on salamanders to prevent a biodiversity crisis
– Maclean’s
“Triage in the wild: Is it time to choose which species live and which die out?” – Explores the controversy surrounding the use of ‘triage’ to direct conservation efforts
– Postmedia newspapers (across Canada)
“In this election, conservation has become a dirty word” – Describes the conspicuous absence of conservation as a campaign issue in the 2015 federal election
– Maclean’s
“Canada is now a conservation cheapskate” – Describes the diminishing investment in conservation by governments, foundations, non-government groups and universities in Canada
– Ottawa Citizen
“Climate change opens up Arctic fisheries – but should Canada cut bait” – Explores conservation and environmental concerns raised by accelerating efforts to promote a commercial fishery in Nunavut
– Globe & Mail
“Inside the deep rift between ‘new’ and traditional conservation” – Examines the growing controversy surrounding recent efforts to link conservation to the economic value of ecological services
– Globe & Mail
“Who taught this bird to open a milk bottle” – Explores the controversies arising from rapidly expanding research into evidence for culture in animals
– Globe & Mail
“Why we need science writers” – Argues that Understanding UN report on climate change needs those who can explain climate change to non-scientists (commentary)
– Hamilton Spectator
“Make climate science personal and people will listen” – Describes how efforts to convince the public to take global warming seriously should focus on its effects on health, business and lifestyle (commentary)
– Postmedia newspapers
“The other missing bees” – Describes conservation efforts to stop the precipitous decline in wild bumblebee populations
– On Nature magazine
“Snakes and developers” – Describes tensions between conservationists and a small island community over efforts to save Lake Erie watersnakes and blue racers on Pelee Island
– Globe & Mail
“Here be giants” – Examines the grim conservation prospects for lake sturgeon in Canada
– On Nature magazine
“The case of the blue butterfly” – Describes the Karner blue butterfly’s conservation limbo following its recent downgrade to ‘extirpated’ status
– On Nature magazine
“The legendary ivory bill lives again! Maybe” – Describes late-day efforts involving Canadian scientists to show the existence of a North American woodpecker declared extinct half a century ago
– Globe & Mail
“The tiny hunter” – Examines the state of odonate conservation in Canada through the story the rapids clubtail, the first endangered dragonfly
– On Nature magazine
“The domino effect” – Explores the conservation and ecosystem consequences of alien invasions by spiny water fleas in Ontario’s northern lakes
– On Nature magazine
“The birder’s bible” – Examines some of the surprising findings of the second Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas
– On Nature magazine
“Nice day for a drive” – Describes the increasing impact of road development on wildlife in Ontario
– Seasons magazine
“Chatting up chickadees” – Explores the groundbreaking research into the birdsong battles of black-capped chickadees – Seasons magazine
“Alarming decrease in the number of boreal bird species” – Describes the results of a Canadian Boreal Initiative/Bird Studies Canada report on boreal bird life
– Canadian Geographic magazine
“Newfoundland’s tiny alien invaders” – Examines the strange mystery and conservation consequences of an unexpected red vole introduction in Newfoundland, where endangered Newfoundland pine martens are holding up forestry operations
– Ottawa Citizen