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Canadian Press environmental reporter Dennis Bueckert, one of Canada’s leading environmental journalists and one of the few in the country to report full-time on the environment nationally, died at age 57 in Ottawa.

Bueckert, one of five original jurors for the Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment, "cared deeply about Canada and the world we live in," said Canadian Press editor-in-chief Scott White. "He wrote about issues like climate change long before most people had heard of the issue ... a serious journalist who took his job seriously," White said of Bueckert, who had transferred to The Canadian Press's Ottawa bureau in 1988 to focus on environment and health policy.

"Dennis was a uniquely kind and gentle soul whose passions could be stirred, however, by his family, by his friends, and by his work," said Rob Russo, chief of the Ottawa bureau of The Canadian Press.

University of North Carolina Knight Journalism Chair Philip Meyer, who also chairs the Grantham jurors, said Bueckert "had a gentle assertiveness that yielded maximum effect for his impressive intellectual power. The jury's deliberations were enhanced by his care and concern, and we shall miss him."

"Dennis was a stellar member of the charter jury for the Grantham Prize," said Seattle Times Executive Editor and Grantham Juror David Boardman. "He brought us the practical sensibilities of a working reporter, and the passion of one who clearly loved environmental journalism. The standards he helped set will be a legacy in the years to come."

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation environmental reporter Eve Savory, in Vancouver, who had long admired Bueckert's reporting, remembered him as "wonderful, gentle, funny Dennis." Sunshine Menezes, Program Administrator for the Grantham Prize, also noted Bueckert's contributions to the program. "He gave his time generously, and the entire judging process benefited not only from his perspective as an accomplished environmental journalist, but from his measured and thoughtful comments."

Bueckert, born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, studied journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa and was reporting for the Saint John Telegraph-Journal and Times-Globe when he moved to be an editorial writer with the Gleaner in Fredericton. He studied French at Universite de Neuchatel in Switzerland before joining The Canadian Press in Montreal as a business and economics writer. The CP story on Bueckert says that "environment and science reporting was Bueckert's passion," and it reported that in 1986 he was reporting on the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident from Ukraine. He later covered the 1993 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the 1994 Cairo global population conference. The wire service says Bueckert "was also regularly honored with internal CP awards for reporting and writing." It pointed to his being named a Grantham juror as "recognition of his stature as an environmental reporter."