Kia ora, I’m Monica.
I'm Monica Evans, a science and environment writer and communications consultant based in Whāingaroa/Raglan, on Aotearoa New Zealand's wild west coast.
I write about the living world: ecosystems, places, people, and the threads of connection and imprints of rupture between them. My journalism appears in Hakai, Mongabay, Biographic and Atlas Obscura, and my personal essays have run in Noēma Magazine, North & South and The Spinoff. I'm drawn to stories that pull the vast and the intimate together: ecological change at the community scale, and the particular ways that big shifts arrive in specific places and lives.
I also work with research and development organisations on a wide range of editorial and communications projects. My regular clients include Landscape Alliance (formerly CIFOR-ICRAF), the Global Landscapes Forum and the International Livestock Research Institute. I've also worked with the UN Environment Programme, the World Bank, the German Development Bank (GiZ), WWF, the Caribbean Development Bank, the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, Jameel Observatory, Resilient Landscapes, the Periodic Table of Food Initiative, Colorado State University, and more.
I was editor-in-chief of Landscape Alliance's news site Forests News in 2023–24, and I'm currently the lead writer for an EU-funded conservation and livelihoods project in the Managalas Conservation Area, Papua New Guinea. I also create and edit content for Australian agency Cultivate Communications across environment, development and social change.
I have an MSc in Development Studies (Distinction) from Victoria University of Wellington, and a background in research and community development. I've been putting words to work since 2017, in the midst of raising two kids, moonlighting as a mediocre aerial acrobat, and getting the urge to be an alpaca farmer well and truly out of my system.
Contact me at monica.alice.evans [at] gmail.com, or find me on LinkedIn.
“Monica is brilliant at breaking down complex topics so that anyone can understand them, and she makes them fun to read, too. She’s incredibly consistent, speedy and easy to work with, and her writing is always clean and well researched. If you need a writer to get a job done quickly and thoroughly, Monica’s the one!”
“Monica is one of the most amazing writers out there: she’s extremely accurate, fast and inspired. Her knowledge of ecological themes is vast and profound. You can’t go wrong with her.”
“Working with Monica is an absolute pleasure. She brings strategic insight to any project, and has been amazing in helping us improve structure and refine our messaging to craft a compelling, coherent story. Her expertise and professionalism make her an invaluable asset to our science communication efforts. I will always work with her.”