Andrew Nikiforuk

Whether writing about melting glaciers, peak oil or the destruction of the boreal forest, Andrew Nikiforuk has earned a reputation as an honest and provocative voice in Canadian journalism. For the last two decades Nikiforuk has tried to write about the things that matter to ordinary people: the quality of their schools; the cleanliness of their water; the impact of tar sands development; the fidelity of their leaders; and the consequences of fast food and factory farming. His award-winning work has appeared in journals as varied as The Walrus, Maclean’s, Chatelaine and Report on Business.

In 2002 his dramatic book, Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig’s War Against Big Oil, earned the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction. His 2006 book Pandemonium documents how unrestrained globalization and its twin, climate change, are planting biological bombs in our livestock, crops, waterways and hospitals. His Empire of The Beetle (2011) documents the virulent attack of the bark beetle on pine and spruce trees of the Canadian and American west, and argues that this is the result of bad resource management and a failure to learn the requisite lessons from nature.