%20-%20Philip%20Jacobson.jpg)
Philip Jacobson
About
Philip Jacobson is a senior editor and investigative journalist for Mongabay, now based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He is currently investigating the global shark trade as part of a yearlong Pulitzer Center fellowship on ocean journalism, with extensive reporting from Latin America and elsewhere. Before that, he uncovered a massive illegal shark finning scheme and widespread labor abuses taking place across the fleet of a major Chinese tuna company. Findings from that series were the centerpiece of a US Treasury Department announcement of sanctions against the firm, its owner and all of its vessels. The series also preceded a ban by the multilateral WCPFC on gear used to target sharks in much of the Pacific Ocean.
Since joining Mongabay in 2015, Jacobson has also done extensive reporting on the forestry, plantation and mining sectors, especially in Indonesia. Notable recent works include breaking the story that a major coal company was planning to demolish thousands of hectares of rainforest in North Kalimantan to make wood pellets for electricity (after which South Korea announced it would phase out subsidies for such projects) and a data-driven piece revealing the extent to which traditional small farmers have been criminally prosecuted and imprisoned as part of the Jokowi administration’s war on haze and wildfires. With the ability to operate in several different languages, he often builds databases out of hard-to-access public records in places such as Brazil and Borneo and frequently works with filmmakers, programmers and local reporters to tell hidden and ambitious stories. A broad swath of his work marries investigative and narrative forms. He also serves as a commissioning editor for Mongabay, guiding staff and freelancers in the production of their own journalism.