The Rhode Island Natural History Survey awarded its 2012 Rhode Island Distinguished Naturalist Award to Providence Journal environmental reporter Peter Lord, who also served as the journalism co-director of the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting at the University of Rhode Island. The award presentation was part of the Natural History Survey’s 16th annual Ecology of Rhode Island conference, “Trends in Human – Wildlife Interaction,” held on Thursday, March 29, at the Quonset O Club in North Kingstown.
A resident of South Kingstown, Lord was recognized for his significant contributions to public education and outreach through his reporting on environmental issues and by preparing the next generation of environmental journalists through his teaching and leadership at the Metcalf Institute.
Lord had been a Providence Journal reporter since 1979 and the paper’s award-winning environmental reporter since 1981 when he began covering such topics as water pollution, hazardous waste, suburban sprawl and declining biodiversity. He reported on every major environmental story in Rhode Island in the subsequent decades, and he regularly reported on a wide range of natural history topics. With his experience and connections, Lord was a perfectly authoritative choice to write the Rhode Island chapter in Charles H.W. Foster’s book, Twentieth-Century New England Land Conservation: A Heritage of Civic Engagement, which was published in 2009.
Lord traveled to northern Alaska to write about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to the Shetland Islands to cover an oil spill, and to Belize, Guatemala, and Costa Rica to write about development pressures on forests. In 2002, the U.S. State Department invited Lord to take part in a two-week tour of Brazil, lecturing to journalists and journalism students about environmental journalism.
“Peter’s contributions to improving public understanding of environmental issues in Rhode Island cannot be overstated,” said Sunshine Menezes, executive director of Metcalf Institute. “He is very deserving of this recognition.”
The award presentation was part of the opening of the Natural History Survey’s annual conference, which in 2012 focused on trends in human-wildlife interactions, a topic that Lord reported on extensively. At the time of the conference, Peter was in hospice with a brain tumor that would claim his life just a week later. Tom Heslin, the Providence Journal’s executive editor, accepted the award on Peter’s behalf.