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KCETLink Media Group and Thomson Reuters Foundation Announce Lineup for New Season of Acclaimed Environmental Series EARTH FOCUS Exploring Adaptation to Changing Environments

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CONTACT
Allison Gray
Agray@kcet.org
747-201-5298

Partnership with UCLA’s Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS)

Will Create New Narratives for Online Audiences at KCET.org/EarthFocus

earth focus
 KCET and Link TV’s EARTH FOCUS features stories around the world in the new season premiering April 25 including (clockwise from upper left): Morocco, Louisiana, Madagascar, and two images from Mongolia(Images courtesy of Thomson Reuters Foundation).

kcet.org/earthfocus and linktv.org/earthfocus

Also streaming on YouTube, Roku and Apple TV

Burbank, Calif. –Mar. 29, 2018 – KCETLink Media Group, a leading national independent nonprofit public broadcast and digital network, today announced the episode lineup for the new season of KCET and Link TV’s acclaimed original environmental investigative series EARTH FOCUS in partnership with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The new season of EARTH FOCUS focuses on the global concerns of adaptation, exploring how environmental changes are forcing all living creatures to adapt in order to survive. EARTH FOCUS will premiere on Weds., Apr. 25 at 8:30 p.m. PT on KCET in Southern California and on Thurs., Apr. 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Link TV Nationwide (DirecTV 375 and DISH Network 9410).

Launched in 2007, EARTH FOCUS is the longest-running environmental news magazine on U.S. television providing regional and national audiences with urgent local and global environmental coverage that spotlights issues, impact and possible solutions from a variety of unique perspectives. In production since 2006, EARTH FOCUS features in-depth reports on key issues such as endangered species, climate change, environmental health and sustainable practices. For more information and to watch episodes online, visit linktv.org/earthfocus or kcet.org/earthfocus.

The new season of the series, co-produced by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, travels to far-flung parts of the globe including Sierra Leone, Madagascar and Morocco, as well as cities in the U.S. including New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to explore how urban planning of communities is evolving in the wake of heightened environmental challenges brought on by climate change and urbanization.  With a goal of reporting on the human impact of climate change, the new season of EARTH FOCUS will take viewers to the front lines to make the issues engaging and personal, and bring to light poignant environmental issues from around the world.

The lineup of episodes includes the following (*order subject to change):

“Sea Level Rising: Living with Water” – Weds., Apr. 25 on KCET and Thurs., Apr. 26 on Link TV.

Louisiana is learning from Hurricane Katrina. Forecasts are dire for Louisiana to experience the second-highest sea level rise in the world. There is a big movement brewing in New Orleans to build adaptive "resilience zones." In Southeast Louisiana, the native peoples of the Isle de Jean Charles have become the first U.S citizens moving within their homeland displaced by climate change.

“Climate Migration” – Weds., May 2 on KCET and Thurs., May 3 on Link TV.  

Populations are dramatically shifting as climate change drives migration. Droughts and floods are driving many people away from their rural, farming communities into big cities. We see how this is manifesting in Mongolia and examine the factors leading to the new community of Haitian people living in limbo at the border between Mexico and the U.S.

“City Planning” – Weds., May 9 on KCET and Thurs., May 10 on Link TV.  

Two cities, San Francisco and Freetown, brace for climate change using vastly different methodologies. San Francisco's developers are building expensive real estate on floodplains as officials try to heed expert projections on future sea levels.  On the other side of the world, a deadly mudslide caused by torrential rains and deforestation in Sierra Leone shows the consequences of city planning that doesn't take climate change into account.

“Adaptation to Global Water Shortages” – Weds., May 16 on KCET and Thurs., May 17 on Link TV.  

Anticipating future water needs, two regions on opposite sides of the world turn to technology for answers.  Western Morocco, near the Sahara Desert, is currently facing unprecedented drought and groundwater mismanagement. But an ancient method of gathering moisture from fog is being taught to 13 villages, allowing people to have a level of local control over their most basic need.  Central Valley California: The food basket of the world uses nearly 80 percent of the entire state’s water supply. Yet there are still close to one million people who don’t have access to clean drinking water. Researchers at UCLA may change that through a technology that would allow unincorporated rural communities to control how contaminated water is treated.

“Future of Food” – Weds., May 23 on KCET and Thurs., May 24 on Link TV.  

Communities and innovators all over the world are creating new sustainable food sources that are resilient to climate change and growing populations. In Madagascar we see how villagers are closing off marine areas to allow the fish supply to replenish at a natural pace. In San Diego, California, aquaculturists are exploring open ocean farming as a more sustainable model for the fishing industry.

“Urban Habitat” – Weds., May 30 on KCET and Thurs., May 31 on Link TV.  

With so much biodiversity in the highly urban area of Los Angeles, species are thriving despite human interference, and in some cases because of it.

UCLA LENS PARTNERSHIP

Timed to the debut of the new season of EARTH FOCUS, KCET has partnered with UCLA's Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS) to debut three new environmental videos at KCET.org/earthfocus. LENS has launched a yearlong collaboration with KCET to create innovative forms of immersive environmental reporting and documentary storytelling. The project brings together UCLA faculty and students from English, Film, Anthropology and Environmental Science and also represents an original collaboration between LENS and UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. Allison Carruth, faculty director of LENS and Associate Professor of English at UCLA, is spearheading the project in partnership with Juan Devis, KCET’s Chief Creative Officer.

The first of three storylines, “Taylor Yard: A Change of Heart in Los Angeles” by Jon Christensen, a LENS co-founder, went live on kcet.org/earthfocus on Feb. 21. The documentary explores the past, present, and visions for the future of Taylor Yard, an abandoned and contaminated rail yard with the ecological and cultural potential to become the "crown jewel" in the future of the Los Angeles River and the diverse communities that surround it.  The next storyline, “Urban Ark Los Angeles,” led by Ursula K. Heise, the Marcia H. Howard Chair in Literary Studies at UCLA and a faculty member in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES), considers how Los Angeles has accidentally become a sanctuary for other endangered plants and animals and reshape urban conservation for the future."

Join the conversation on social media using #EarthFocus

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

EARTH FOCUS is supported by the Orange County Community Foundation, the Farvue Foundation and other generous institutional funders. The EARTH FOCUS series was created by Raisa Scriabine. 

ABOUT KCETLINK MEDIA GROUP

KCETLink Media Group is a national independent, nonprofit, digital and broadcast network that provides high-quality, culturally diverse programming designed to engage the public in innovative, entertaining and transformative ways. With a commitment to independent perspectives, smart global entertainment, local communities, and opportunities for engagement and social action, KCETLink depicts people and the world through a lens unavailable elsewhere in U.S. media. A viewer-supported 501(c)(3) organization, KCETLink content is distributed nationally via satellite on Link TV (DIRECTV channel 375 and DISH Network channel 9410) and on KCET in Southern and Central California via broadcast and cable, as well as through various digital delivery systems. For additional information about KCET and Link TV productions, web-exclusive content, programming schedules and community events, please visit kcet.org or linktv.org. Select programming from KCET and Link TV is also available for streaming on Apple TV and Roku platforms.

ABOUT THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION

The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of the world’s largest news and information provider. We are an independent charity, registered both in the UK and in the USA. We leverage the reach and reputation of Thomson Reuters to run free programmes that inform, connect, and empower people around the world: free legal assistance to NGOs and social enterprises through TrustLaw, coverage of the world's under-reported news, media development, and Trust Conference, a world-leading forum in the fight against modern slavery.

ABOUT UCLA LENS

The Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS) is an incubator for new research and collaboration on storytelling, communications, and media in the service of environmental conservation and equity. We are a diverse network of faculty and students from across disciplines who explore how today’s environmental challenges connect to longer histories of imagining the natural world. At LENS, we begin with the idea that these challenges are as much cultural and political as they are scientific and technological.

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