Koberstein is mounting a Kickstarter campaign , in hoped of raising $15,000 to back the online journal. The online kickstarter was launched January 28th and will run through March 29th.

In a time when independent and investigative journalism has reached an all time low, veteran Portland environmental reporter Paul Koberstein is re-launching Cascadia Times, an environmental journal that has largely been on hiatus since 2009.

The public needs to be informed about the environment around them, and how it is changing. Rising global temperatures and increasing development pressures are putting the natural world and our health at risk as never before. And environmental problems are only getting worse, as federal agencies under President Trump are transferring public resources (the air, land, waters and wildlife) to private corporations so they can be freely exploited for profit. State governments have not been able to fill the breach. The public’s need for information about what’s happening to the planet has never been greater.

People cannot be expected to track the ongoing environmental destruction without media watchdogs who investigate the scandals and abuses that are wrecking the planet. But in recent years, media outlets have been cutting back on their coverage of the environment in the face of a sharp decline in financial resources brought on by the internet.

To help fill this information gap, Cascadia Times, an award-winning environmental magazine which has been on hiatus since 2009, is planning its return. Founded in 1995, Cascadia Times has provided readers with hard-hitting investigative reports, stirring photography and fresh insights about our corner of the world. With the first issue of the new Cascadia Times magazine, which will reappear starting this spring, it will renew its commitment to empowering readers with quality journalism on issues that matter to them.

The editor will be Paul Koberstein, an acclaimed journalist who was behind groundbreaking reports published over the last several years in the Portland Tribune and elsewhere that exposed massive toxic pollution emitted by metals manufacturers and oil refineries in Portland. Koberstein, the original Cascadia Times editor and one of its founders, will direct the new editorial staff of Cascadia Times. In addition to writing for the Tribune, he is a former staff writer for The Oregonian and Willamette Week.

Since 2009, Cascadia Times has published its news stores online at www.times.org. The relaunched Cascadia Times magazine will investigate environmental news from the Cascadia Bioregion, which includes Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, Montana and Northern California – roughly the range of the Pacific salmon and its temperate rainforest habitat. Cascadia Times will also cover marine issues in the North Pacific Ocean as far away as Hawaii. Cascadia Times’ approach to environmental journalism has long been recognized by respected national organizations.

For example, in 1996, Utne Reader – in its annual Alternative Media Awards – named Cascadia Times one of the eight best new magazines in the United States. And in 2006, Utne Reader selected Cascadia Times as one of the eight best environmental publications in the country.

In 2005, Cascadia Times received the John B. Oakes Award which is given annually for the most distinguished environmental reporting in the United States. Runners-up for the award that year included the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.