Mark Dowie retired recently from The University of California Graduate School of Journalism where he taught science, environmental reporting and foreign correspondence.
In his final year he conducted a series of courses on the environment in China. Previously he was editor-at-large of InterNation, a transnational feature syndicate based in Paris, before that a publisher and editor of Mother Jones magazine.
1993-95 was spent writing a critical history of the American environmental movement, which was released in April 1995 by MIT Press. The book Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of The Twentieth Century was nominated for a 1995 Pulitzer Prize.
In 1997 he returned to MIT to research foundation philanthropy, the results of which was published in May 2001. The title: American Foundations: An Investigative History. And in 2004 year he returned again to research the 150 year relationship between transnational conservation and indigenous peoples. That work was be published in April 2009, under the title Conservation Refugees: The Hundred Year Conflict Between Global Conservation and Native Peoples. And on December 15, 2015 he sent a final draft of The Haida Gwaii Lesson to his editor at Inkshares Press.
During his thirty five years in journalism Dowie has written over two hundred investigative reports for magazines, newspapers and other publications. Before and after working for Mother Jones, he also either worked or wrote regularly for the Cleveland Press, the San Francisco Examiner, California Magazine and American Health. He is a contributing editor of Orion and editor-at-large of Guernica magazines.
His works have won nineteen journalism awards including four National Magazine Awards (he has been an NMA finalist seven times), a George Polk Award, as well as citations from the National Press Club, Sigma Delta Chi, Project Censored, The University of Kansas (William Allen White Gold Medal) The University of Missouri (Penny-Missouri Award), a Maggie, Best American Science Writing of 2005, Best Science and Nature Writing 2006 and was a finalist for the 2006 Reuters Environmental Writing Award. In 1982 he was awarded the bronze medallion by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), his fourth award from that organization. In 1992 he received the Media Alliance's Meritorious Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 1995 was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters by John F. Kennedy University.
Dowie is co-founder and Chair of the Marin Media Institute a learning institution for small scale regional media workers. He a former fellow of the Tomales Bay Institute, a national think tank working to redefine the commons. He is former Chairman of the Board of Coyuchi Inc. (manufacturers of organic cotton products), a trustee of the Sheridan Brown Fund in Los Angeles and The Mesa Refuge. He is a national advisory board member of the Center For Investigative Reporting, GRACE (Global Resource Action Center for the Environment), and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). He has been granted residencies at Blue Mountain Center, The Ucross Foundation, The Medway Environmental Trust, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and in 1999 held a research fellowship with the Aspen Institute.
Last updated July 2017