About
Hello. My name is Pauline and I’m an anthropologist and journalist. I currently work with Ngā Ara Whetū: Centre for Climate, Biodiversity and Society writing articles, co-hosting the podcast Sustain! and conducting research. I am also a fellow on an HRC-funded Graphic Medicine project about brain tumour symptoms.
I’ve conducted ethnographic research in South Africa and New Zealand:
- on the conservation and maintenance of Transkei coastal forests;
- on rare disease and food security during times of rapid change (like the COVID pandemic,
- the Christchurch earthquake and Australian wild fires);
- and the cultural value of literary festivals in times of emergency and risk.
I was previously the editor of D-Photo magazine and as a freelance journalist interviewed politicians like Jenny Shipley, Hollywood veterans like Jon Landau, photographer Steve McCurry, and industry leaders. I have reported from Papua New Guinea, New Orleans, Chicago, Berlin and Japan on everything from Pete Buthane’s first Earthrace, to Future Eco-Homes.
As a freelance science journalist and independent researcher I write and research on a variety of topics spanning climate change, climate justice and sustainability, nature, anthropology, public health, bioethics, rare disease and the wondrous forms of life in our world.
Official Bio
Pauline Herbst is a writer, journalist and anthropologist. She has lived and worked in South Africa, the UK and New Zealand. Her work explores how our lives are entangled with the environment; the health of one affecting the other. She has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Auckland and is an alumna of Curtis Brown Creative and the Granta Memoir and Nature Writing courses. She has been long listed for the Fish Memoir award, presented her scholarly work internationally and is a podcaster for the Centre for Climate, Biodiversity and Society. Pauline is currently working on two book projects: a creative non-fiction eco-memoir about death, speculative wonder and life in a climate emergency; and a scholarly work on environmental journaling during COVID lockdowns.
