Invisible Ink: writing from the edge of extinction - serialised micro-publishing experiment, with the eight chapters currently live and two more in production, April to November 2024.

Realising Just Cities (African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, 2021)

Tomatoes & Taxi Ranks (African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, 2018) 

The Psychonauts (serialised audio-book, self-published, 2017)

Oranjezicht City Farm: Food, Community, Connection (OCF NPC, 2016)

Burning the Karoo (self-published, 2015)

Science Writing 101: Tips from the Newsroom (self-published training manual, 2015)

The Hungry Season: Feeding Southern Africa’s Cities (Picador Africa/Pan MacMillan, 2012)

Invaded: the Biological Invasion of South Africa (Wits University Press, 2009), honorary mention in the 2010 Sunday Times Alan Paton Non-Fiction Awards

The Future of Water in Africa (Pearson Education, 2010)

Boiling Point: People in a Changing Climate (Wits University Press; 2008)

Boiling Point: 2007 Ruth First Memorial Lecture (Heinrich Böll Foundation; Feb 2008)

Scorched: South Africa’s Changing Climate (Wits University Press, 2006), honorary mention in the 2007 Sunday Times Alan Paton Non-Fiction Awards

Book chapters

Opinion Pieces by South African Thought Leaders (Penguin, 2011, edited by Max du Preez)

Bending the Curve (Africa Geographic, 2009, edited by Robert Zipplies)

Working with The Media Hack Collective, Leonie researched and wrote the long-form feature for this three-part initiative exploring resilience for coastal cities in the context of climate collapse. A Perfect Storm was published by The Outlier in April 2023, and republished by the Daily Maverick.

Leonie worked with the African Climate Mobility Initiative to assist with writing, developing or editing text and captions on the Voices from the Frontline publication. She also helped develop and edit the scientific report, African Shifts, on which this was based, along with some supporting material.

Using art as political commentary on the food system. Is sugar the first gateway drug? Is obesity a sign of a polluted food environment? Who is profiting from the corporate capture of the dopamine system in our brains?

Rapporteur for 2020 Food Dialogues, organised by the SA Urban Food and Farming Trust. Through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic shut-down, the dialogues found that food poverty predates the 2020 crisis and asks how we create a more equal and inclusive food system.

Contributing author to the report, which looks at the market dominance of multinational corporations in the food system in several developing world economies, and how this drives public health trends associated with hunger and nutrition, as well as the implications for poverty and inequality.  

Contributed long-form writing pieces to an exhibition by the University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities (2014).

Rapporteur for a lecture series looking at urban food farming and the urban food system that was written up as The Food Dialogues report, hosted by the Cape Town Partnership and the Oranjezicht City Farm (2014).

A long-form series of stories capturing the development work of the Environmental Monitoring Groups (EMG) (2013-2014).  

Script writing and project managing an animated video on food security for the University of Cape Town’s Centre of Criminology, in English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Zulu in 2011.

Conceptualised, researched and wrote up the research relating to inland flooding and sea level rise in the City of Cape Town, for the University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities.

End-of-project report written in a 40-page magazine format for Marie Stopes South Africa (MSSA), as commissioned by Creative Consulting & Development Works. The magazine looked at work done by the MSSA in the field of supporting women’s sexual and reproductive health rights, during a European Union-funded project around the country (May - July 2012). 

An adaptation of the South African National Biodiversity Institute’s (SANBI’s) 2012 National Biodiversity Assessment. This is a 60-page publication for a wider, non-scientific audience (Sep 2012 - Feb 2013). 

For the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) South Africa. This 34-page book regionalises the organisation’s international publication by the same name (Nov 2012 - Feb 2013).

Leonie has been published widely in the SA media and occasionally abroad, most notably in National Geographic magazine, and its digital platform.

Other recent work includes her contributions to the Daily Maverick’s climate reporting team for Our Burning Planet, and her regular column for the Heinrich Boll Foundation’s Energy Transition.

She has contributed to, amongst others, the following titles: Sunday Independent, Mail & Guardian, Sunday Argus, Sunday Tribune, Sueddeutsche Zeitung (the German daily), Runner’s World, The Big Issue, Africa Geographic, Harper’s, Getaway, Readers Digest, SA 4x4, Wils, Mind Shift, Mindspace, Rhodes Journalism Review, Progress, EarthYear, Blue Chip, Farmers Weekly, Wineland, African Decisions, Rhodos, Engineering News and Cape Times, among others.

A serialised audio-book, released on a podcast platform. This is a self-funded capacity building initiative through which Leonie is learning the basics of amateur broadcasting, while investigating the emerging mental health treatment (psychedelic-assisted therapy) that is growing rapid momentum in the Unites States and Europe, and asks if this could be a valid public mental health care intervention in traumatised, post-apartheid South Africa.

Joubert, L. 2007. Spinning straw men: when science writing goes wrong. Rhodes Journalism Review. No. 27: 19-20

Joubert, L. 2010. When deadlines don’t loom. Rhodes Journalism Review. No. 29: 73

Joubert, L. 2011. South Africa’s changing climate. Current Allergy & Clinical Immunology. Vol 24(2): 62-64

Davies SJ., Chown, SL & Joubert, LS. 2007. Renewed management system and provisions for South Africa’s Sub-Antarctic Islands.  Paper and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania. Vol 141 (1): 115-120

Joubert, L. 2013. Food security: The optimal diet for people and the planet. South African Medical Journal. Vol 103(11): 809-810 

Contracted by Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Invasion Biology (CIB) in 2005 to co-author the new Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for the Prince Edward Islands (PEI) Special Nature Reserve. DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology 2010 (2014). Prince Edward Islands Management Plan Version 0.2 (Department of Environmental Affairs).

TV script writing and editing: script writer on episodes 1 and 4 of A Vision of Paradise: Global Warming and Religion by Hooper Productions; the four-part series was screened on SABC2 in August 2009.

Script editing for film by Dogged Films.

Script writing and project managing an animated video on food security for the University of Cape Town’s Centre of Criminology, in English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Zulu in 2011.