I have twenty-five years of experience working in Latin America and Canada. I specialize in reporting on the environment, migration and inequality. My work has appeared on the CBC, NPR and BBC World Service. I've won a couple of awards.
I'm also a radio mentor and editor, having recruited, trained and guided the work of more than 150 reporters across the region.
Through my company Studio Canek I also do web development, animation and elearning.
Reach or follow me here LinkedIn.
The city of Oaxaca, Mexico, is in a state of insurrection. Burnt out buses litter the city center, while the state government hides in hotels. Late one night, a convoy of armed police approaches a barricade, rifles raised. A shout. A shot. A volley, then engines revving into the distance.
Mountain villages in the south of Colombia are surrounded by minefields. Travel in and out is impossible. But one group of villagers, caught outside the perimeters since the conflict began, plans to return.
The constant, flow of migrants from Haiti to the Dominican Republic is an open secret, barely regulated by authorities and clearly visible any weekday afternoon in remote border towns. But what almost no one wants to talk about about are the child victims of the trade.
In twenty years, Haiti has transformed from a predominantly rural country to one of the most urbanized on the continent. This has helped reduce extreme poverty, but it has put a strain on the infrastructure of Port-au-Prince, where most migrants end up. The movement is unsustainable, say experts, but unlikely to reverse any time soon.
Ahleli dreams of having hot water at home to ease her mother's arthritis. While her schoolfriends spend their money on the high school prom, she invests in a biodigestor, a low-tech method of converting animal waste into burnable methane. But will it work, and silence her scornful neighbours?
From the old medina of Rabat to a seed bank in New Zealand, from the first farmers of the fertile crescent to a modern genetics lab, follow the work of scientists and farmers as they race to develop a strain of barley that can stand up to our changing climate. Produced for the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
A one hour radio documentary about Haiti which I co-hosted. The piece features an interview with renowned Haitian DJ Michael Brun and field reports from US and Haitian journalists. Produced by Beverly Abel. This documentary was the most downloaded audio from PRX that year.
Centro de Estudios Marinos is an environmental NGO in Honduras. They work with fishing families to protect wildlife and the coastal environment through many innovative and unusual activities, including a traditional canoe race through mangrove. While helping them to produce a podcast about their work, I also competed in the race. (SPANISH)
The streets teem with migrants in the city of Tapachula on Mexico's southern border. They've endured thousands of kilometers to get here; next stop the US. But many may never leave.
Muslim missionaries build a utopia among the displaced indigenous of southern Mexico. Their commune looks idyllic, and members say they are content, but neighbours look on with distrust, and this trip inside suggests the missionaries intentions are not all they say.
Arctic ice is said to be the classic natural tipping point. When it starts to go, it will go fast and take lots of other systems with it. But what is a "tipping point", and does it really apply to ice?
Scientists have used machine learning (sometimes called artificial intelligence) to study the effect of clouds on global warming. The results are surprising.
Burnt up oil, sulphur, little bits of plastic. We pour them into the sky by the ton and just like CO2, they affect global climate change. The problem is, scientists don't know which way.
Haiti is not the most water-scarce island in the Caribbean, but it might feel like to P., who spent yesterday walking the city, crossing burnout barricades to find drinking water for his family.
Jean Wiener should be elated. His organization just won a major grant to plant mangrove across his native Haiti. But it comes just as the country plunges into new depths of violence. Instead, he looks ashen-faced and haunted.
Amid a crush of bodies, father and daughter attempt to leap aboard a moving train. Can they hang on as the train picks up speed? This piece originally aired on the CBC Radio and other radio outlets, but I can't find the audio file. This is a Spanish production, with still images and English subtitles. (Winner of a New York Festivals Award.)
This is an interview I conducted (alongside the journalist Manuel Ureste) with African and Asian migrats gathered on the Mexico-Guatemala border. It was featured on a web TV program for the journalism collective Periodista de Pie.