Environmental affairs magazine The Ecologist willl end its 39-year run in print when it goes online-only in June.
The magazine, which has a circulation of 20,000 copies a month, has pledged to invest heavily in its website, www.theecologist.org, which was first launched in 2005.
In a statement the title said that the change in format will generate day-to-day debates on the ecology to a wider audience, while maintaining its own green credentials by reducing its carbon footprint.
“Moving online is a prospective which is current and one which new advertisers will embrace”, said Richard Coles, the Ecologist’s publishing director.
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“We have always led the way by producing a magazine to the highest possible environmental standards by printing on 100 per cent post consumer waste paper, printing with vegetable inks and distributing to North America by boat.”
The new website is likely to contain a mixture of free-to-view and premium content, with the magazine’s extensive archives made accessible later in the year.
The Ecologist declined to comment directly on the future of its nine full time staff.
But Coles said: “We are currently in the process of consulting staff about the re-launch and any changes involved in the switch to online will be as a result of this.”
The Ecologist was launched by Teddy Goldsmith in July 1970, when environmentalist movements began to emerge in mainstream politics.
Teddy Goldsmith’s nephew, Zac Goldsmith, became editor in 1998 and soon after took the decision to dedicate an entire edition to examining the environmental record of the Biotech company, Monsanto. The issue became the biggest selling edition in the magazine’s history and was translated in six languages.
Zac Goldsmith, now a director on the magazine, said: “When the magazine was launched, it was almost a voice in the wilderness. It is immensely gratifying to all those who care about the environment that most of the issues the magazine has espoused for 39 years have now moved into the mainstreams of political and social thinking.
“Relaunching online will enable the Ecologist to react faster to what is now a global and daily debate on how best to preserve the world.”
The final copy of the Ecologist will be published on June 19.
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