Since the establishment of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowship in 2022, the organization has trained a number of African journalists who were accepted into the six-month program. For instance, 2023 fellow Abdulkareem Mojeed leveraged that experience to pursue other fellowships, inform his own teaching, and to strengthen the environmental component of his work as an investigative journalist for Nigeria’s leading news platform, Premium Times, which published all of his stories produced for Mongabay during the program.

According to Mojeed, the knowledge he gained as a fellow has helped him carve out a niche in his newsroom as one of the best environmental journalists, not only at Premium Times, but in all of Nigeria. On the back of the Mongabay program, he successfully applied for several other fellowships, including one that allowed him to attend the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, the UN climate summit (COP28) in Dubai, and the 2024 Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Philadelphia.

Since then, Mojeed was also accepted to New York University’s Science, Health & Environment Reporting Program, has been asked to speak on environmental issues at public forums and has started facilitating training sessions on climate change and environmental issues. As of mid 2024, Mojeed had trained over 50 journalists from across Nigeria, an effort partially funded by the European Union.

“It’s an important project, as many colleagues are interested in environmental topics, but don’t know how to approach them,” he said. As a trainer, he tries to emulate his “fantastic” Mongabay fellowship editor, who he said is one of the best editors he has ever worked with.

Despite Mojeed’s inspiring trajectory, the reality across most of Africa is that established media outlets have little capacity, resources or interest in environmental reporting. To further address these barriers, in February 2024 Mongabay expanded its program to include an Africa-specific fellowship. Within its first year, the program trained a diversity of local journalists, including Edgard Juste Agbanou.

Born in Benin in a forest community impacted by pollution and deforestation, Agbanou now works as a freelance journalist in Togo. According to Agbanou, the fellowship equipped him to report on environmental issues that are close to his heart: “For my Mongabay assignment, I spend a lot of time on the ground in forest communities, raising awareness that people are harming themselves with some of their activities. Just yesterday I spoke to a farmer who cuts trees to get more space for his plantation. We talked and he realized how this affects rainfall, and today he is replanting trees.”

Likewise, former fellow Abel Yerbanga said, “We are already having an impact on our community, because we ask questions and raise awareness.” Albakaye Bollo Cissé, who comes from a local community affected by climate change in Mali, now uses what he calls “the Mongabay method” to contact sources, and focuses his reporting on solutions. Within a week of publishing his first story with Mongabay, Cissé’ was put in charge of all environmental reporting at the radio station where he was working.

But in order for their reporting efforts to be sustainable, environmental journalists like these need viable career paths. In regions where this is particularly difficult, capacity-building initiatives such as Mongabay’s Africa fellowship are an efficient, effective and impactful way to kickstart careers, train inexperienced local reporters and help them publish stories that would otherwise go untold.

Perhaps most importantly, the training gives fellows useful skills and exposure to new professional opportunities. “They are taken more seriously afterwards,” says Juliette Chapalain, Mongabay’s Africa fellowship and multimedia editor. The fellowship creates a pathway for fellows to continue to surface and pitch stories both to Mongabay and other outlets, while providing an opportunity for fellows to connect and build lasting relationships, which have even inspired new collaborations. For example, the initial cohort of the Africa fellowship launched a network of French-speaking environmental journalists called “Réseau Africain des Journalistes Environnementaux Francophones” (RAJEF) based in Burkina Faso, which shares environmental information and useful reporting tools with its community.

Support independent environmental journalism

If you are interested in supporting environmental journalism initiatives such as these, there are two excellent ways you can do so with Mongabay. First, consider making a donation, which directly helps us continue to produce high-impact journalism from nature’s frontline. Second, subscribe to Mongabay’s newsletter to get the latest environmental news delivered right to your inbox, and share whatever articles move you with friends and family.

About Mongabay

Mongabay is a nonprofit environmental science and conservation news platform focused on providing original, reliable, and independent journalism from nature’s frontline. We pride ourselves on producing reporting that has substantial and tangible impacts around the world.

Banner image: African lion. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.