The work of the Lancaster Environment Centre is “breath-taking”, according to an award-winning journalist and filmmaker who has been writing about the Centre for the past decade.

Alison Cahn, who is retiring after ten years writing stories for the Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) website, has seen major changes taking place during her tenure, not least the big increase in women in senior roles, particularly as professors.

“I love the range of stories that I write and the range of people I meet,” she said.

“I might be talking to someone about volcanic plumes one day and then about ice cores, plant cell biology, or indigenous land rights the next.

“The breadth of what people study in LEC is breath-taking, dealing with some of the major challenges facing the world today. It has been an incredible environmental education for me. I see my role as explaining this amazing work to the wider world.

Alison first came to Lancaster with her husband Kevin Frea to join a newly forming community with a focus on sustainability.

The couple spent three months travelling from London on a narrow-boat, and moved into Lancaster Cohousing in Halton in October 2012, as part of the first group of residents.

“Cohousing combines private homes with communal facilities - so we have our own home, and also a common house where we socialise and sometimes eat with others, and a shared laundry, children's room and guest rooms,” Alison said.

“Our homes are passivhaus, so are very energy efficient.

Our energy is provided by community owned solar panels and hydro, and a biomass boiler. We share a lot of resources, even cars.

“Our communal meals are vegan and vegetarian – which is important as livestock farming is responsible for so much environmental damage, as I know from my work with LEC.”

Alison is part of the team that runs tours of the cohousing community for interested people, including students from the Environment Centre.

The land the community bought on the banks of the Lune in Halton included an empty building, which had previously been an oilcloth mill and then an engineering factory.

“I was one of three people asked to work out how to bring new life to this building,” Alison said.

“We have created Halton Mill - a low carbon work and event space, run as a cooperative, offering flexible, good value space for people to work, perform and be creative.”

Before moving to Lancaster, Alison worked in regional journalism and then moved into TV, first of all in current affairs and then documentaries.

She covered Gaza during the first Palestinian uprising and spent three months in Downing Street following Alastair Campbell when he was Tony Blair's Director of Communications.

“I did a few films that made headlines themselves,” she said. “The most notorious was Death on the Rock, about the killing of three IRA active service personnel in Gibraltar, while they were planning to plant a bomb.

“It raised questions about the legality of the killings.

The then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher tried – unsuccessfully - to prevent the programme being broadcast, and it eventually won a BAFTA.”

With her LEC hat back on, Alison said that one of the most challenging things about her role was translating the complex research people are doing for a lay audience.

“I’m not a scientist myself, but it's good not to be an expert - it means the academics have to explain things in a way I can understand, which means that I can write it so the lay person can understand it.”

“As well as the increase in women academics, another big change has been the growing importance of social scientists in the department.

“Mixing social and natural science isn't easy - the way of doing things is very different,” she said.

“When I arrived, a lot of the social scientists felt they were an add on, not seen as central to the department, and that the ambition for collaborations between social and natural scientists wasn't really happening.

“My perception is that social scientists are now seen as a key part of the department, and that more collaborations are taking place.

“Finally, there have been some really high performing new teams created, covering areas like photosynthesis and coral reef ecology, that are amongst the top in their field globally.”

“But some of the fundamental things about the department haven’t changed.

It is still a very friendly, supportive place to work, full of people who are passionate about their research, and about teaching the next generation of environmentalists.”

Alison and Kevin are now spending three months travelling by train around Europe, including Italy, Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey before returning to the UK via the Balkans.

In September she is starting a Foundation Year studying Art at the University of Central Lancashire.

She said: “I've been doing art classes for ten years now, gaining skills, and I want to explore what I want to say with my art. I’m pretty certain that the environment is likely to figure in there somehow.”

Alison is succeeded by former Lancaster Guardian journalist Nick Lakin.

You can hear Alison talking about her journalism in this issue of the BBC programme The Reunion.