Nathan Rott
Nathan Rott is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where he focuses on environment issues and the American West.
Based at NPR West in Culver City, California, Rott spends a lot of his time on the road, covering everything from breaking news stories like California's wildfires to in-depth issues like the management of endangered species and many points between.
Rott owes his start at NPR to two extraordinary young men he never met. As the first recipient of the Stone and Holt Weeks Fellowship in 2010, he aims to honor the memory of the two brothers by carrying on their legacy of making the world a better place.
A graduate of the University of Montana, Rott prefers to be outside at just about every hour of the day. Prior to working at NPR, he worked a variety of jobs including wildland firefighting, commercial fishing, children's theater teaching, and professional snow-shoveling for the United States Antarctic Program. Odds are, he's shoveled more snow than you.
-
Millions of animals die on roads, and the new infrastructure law includes money for wildlife crossings to keep them safe. We visit the site where the first major urban crossing will soon be built.
-
The ruling revokes leases sold in the Gulf of Mexico in the largest oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history. It says the Interior Department failed to consider the greenhouse gases it would produce. -
The Biden administration, reversing another Trump rollback, is tightening vehicle fuel mileage standards. It comes as much of Biden's other climate plans are at risk.
-
The Western megadrought is revealing a famed desert landscape long drowned by a controversial dam. It's raising questions about the future of this oasis, and water in the American West.
-
The Oregon-born gray wolf gained a following this year when it became the first to travel to Southern California in a century. Wildlife officials say it appears to have been struck by a vehicle.
-
Despite its pledges to combat the worsening climate crisis, the Biden administration is opening tens of millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas leasing.
-
The new infrastructure package allocates billions of dollars for projects to strengthen the country's resilience to climate change. But there are questions about whether it's even close to enough.
-
A welcome early season deluge of rain in California has not ended the drought which persists in other parts of the West as well. The warming climate makes it harder to replenish rivers and reservoirs.
-
The wetlands damaged in southern California's oil spill had been restored decades ago, and are some of the last remaining in the area. Ecologists say damage from the recent spill will be long lasting.
-
The clean up and investigation continues after a major oil spill off California's coast. In a place where most marshes have been lost, it damaged a restored wetland that's a refuge for shorebirds.
-
An oil spill off Huntington Beach has released more than 140,000 gallons of crude oil into coastal waters — killing marine life and fouling wetlands.
-
Nearly two dozen species are being removed from the endangered species list because they are extinct. More than a million other species are at risk of extinction because of human activities.
