New Special Reporting Project: Apes
Apes around the world are balanced on the knife-edge of extinction. Among the great apes, Cross River gorillas, western and eastern lowland gorillas, and all orangutans are all now listed by the IUCN as critically endangered; mountain gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are endangered. Gibbons, or lesser apes, face an equally dire situation, with the majority of known species listed as either endangered or critically endangered. Mongabay is launching a special reporting project on apes aimed at raising public attention about the issues facing great apes and gibbons. Proposals for print, video, data and multimedia stories are welcome. For a full detail description and how to submit your pitch, please click...
Mongabay seeking Conservation Solutions for new Special Reporting Project
Much of the narrative around conservation dwells on doom and gloom – habitats being destroyed, species being pushed closer to extinction, and destructive projects – despite the presence of noteworthy successes and promising practices. A new Mongabay reporting project aims to identify solutions to environmental challenges, so that they can be celebrated and adopted more widely. We’re searching for real-world examples from both land and sea, which can help conservation groups, agencies, and communities address the problems caused by habitat loss, overharvesting, climate change, pollution, and other threats. Through this reporting effort, we aim to help groups who may lack access to information on available tools and strategies, by highlighting where and why conservation efforts have been successful. Highlighting success stories can lead to transformative change by providing practitioners with blueprints and case studies for effective models. For a detailed description of the project and instructions on how to submit your pitch, please click...
New Investigative Special Reporting Project: Cross-Border Commodities
Examining the origins of commodities and products is a rich field for investigative inquiry, with probes of supply chains revealing major cases of environmental criminality, human rights abuses and corruption, prompting action by policymakers. Yet accurately conveying the importance of local environmental trends often requires a collaborative approach to gain a deeper understanding of global and transboundary forces, as well as how these processes intersect with a vast number of communities and ecosystems in ways that defy conventional news narratives. In response, Mongabay is seeking pitches for cross-border investigative reporting projects that go beyond the daily news headlines to uncover wrongdoing at the intersection of global trade and environmental degradation. For a detailed description of the project and instructions on how to submit your pitch, please...
Mongabay Latam story generates multiple impacts in Peru
For the residents of remote rural areas like the Peruvian Amazon, Mongabay provides a vital service by covering issues that the mainstream media have neither the editorial budgets nor perhaps the political space to report on. However, local and international NGOs, a core constituency of civil society, increasingly use our reports to share information with their communities and advocate for policy changes from governmental officials. One example from Peru is particularly illustrative of Mongabay’s role in enabling consensus building. In September 2017, six farmers were murdered in the district of Nueva Requena. Their bodies were found floating in a river; they had been shot in the head, and their hands and feet bound. The initial reports of this incident that reached the capital in Lima were inaccurate, yet no journalists traveled to the area to follow up in the immediate aftermath. However, one of Mongabay’s reporters went there five days after the crime to produce the story “Ucayali Forests: a booty for land traffickers” (English version here). The report detailed serious problems associated with land trafficking, the development of new roads into forests, and the complicity of local authorities in the nontransparent “legalization” of these schemes. The information published in that story was then included in an investigation by Peru’s Public Prosecutor’s Office into illegal land grabs in Ucayali by palm oil companies. A prosecutor specializing in environmental crimes later said, “Media like Mongabay-Latam contributes knowledge of the true situation of the environment. With the information they provide, which is evaluated and verified, officials can make decisions.” As a result of Mongabay’s extensive reporting, the National Organization of Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Women of Peru (ONAMIAP) republished the Mongabay-Latam story on its website to share the news directly with its community. Then in March 2018, National Geographic published a report on infrastructure development in Ucayali and cited Mongabay’s reporting in the region. Finally, the Environmental Investigation Agency requested GPS coordinates for the disputed area to monitor the progress of deforestation in this area which had not previously been mapped. The same request was made by the Andean Amazon Monitoring Project to establish, through satellite maps, the increasing forest loss in the area. Keep up with all of Mongabay-Latam’s coverage at the website, https://es.mongabay.com or on social media (Facebook: @MongabayLatam, Twitter: @MongabayLatam, Instagram: @MongabayLatam). Banner photo depicting the area in question by Mongabay-Latam reporter Yvette Sierra...
