Conservation Group Honors Advocate Reporter

By Advocate staff report

Mike Dunne, a reporter at The Advocate since 1978, has won the first America’s Wetland Conservationist of the Year Award for his work covering the threats posed to Louisiana’s wetlands.

Dunne, 57, author of “America’s Wetland: Louisiana’s Vanishing Coast” with photographer Bevil Knapp, will receive the award at a ceremony today at the Port of New Orleans.

“I’m honored but I think they could have chosen a lot of people for this award because there are so many people who have spent decades trying to call attention to it,” said Dunne, who has been writing about coastal land loss for The Advocate since the mid- 1980s.

R. King Milling, chairman of America’s Wetland Foundation, said Dunne’s “no-nonsense approach to reporting on the issue of coastal land loss, and his continued focus on the environmental issues surrounding its loss, have helped our causes immeasurably.”

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