Precautionary Principle - The Precaution Reporter
When the staff of the Science & Environmental Health Network learned that Rachel's Precaution Reporter (RPR) was slated for retirement, we knew we had to do something. RPR has been a keystone of SEHN's work on the precautionary principle, and we had a feeling that our colleagues relied on it as well. In order to gauge reader interest, we asked RPR publisher Peter Montague if he would do a readership survey. We hoped to discover whether people were really reading and using RPR, and therefore whether we should devote our organization's resources to keep it going.
Were we surprised! Within hours of sending the survey, we were positively deluged with responses, lamenting the end of RPR, begging it to go on, relaying the specific ways activists and scholars have been using RPR in their work, and offering an outpouring of volunteer time, funding and support to keep it going. From every corner of the US as well as several other countries, devoted readers pledged their loyalty to RPR.
Well Dear Readers, we can't deny such passion! Due to popular demand from you, SEHN has decided to carry on RPR. Although noone can do it like Peter -- one of the true Godfathers of the environmental health and justice movements -- we will do our best to steer this little ship. At first SEHN will publish RPR monthly, and then depending on resources (has anyone else heard that phrase this year?) we will try to ramp up the frequency. (Unfortunately we can't pick up Rachel's Democracy and Health News too, only Rachel's Precaution Reporter.)
And meanwhile, SEHN and Rachel's have been deeply touched by your offerings of support for the work. Like all non-profits, SEHN is on pins and needles financially this year. To those of you who love RPR and offered to send $12 or $120 to support its continuation, we humbly and gratefully accept your partnership in this vital work.
Recent issues of the Precaution Reporter can be found here.
To donate online, click here.
"To subscribe to the Precaution Reporter, send a message to info [at] sehn [dot] org."