Mongabay Latam and El Deber win prestigious El Rey Award
Mongabay Latam and its partners at the major Bolivian daily newspaper El Deber have won the El Rey Award, also known as the King of Spain International Journalism Award. A top prize recognizing the best in Spanish and Portuguese-language journalism in Ibero-America since 1983, the awards are announced annually by Agencia EFE and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development. The Mongababy-El Deber team was recognized for Roberto Navia Gabriel’s investigative report on illegal trafficking in jaguar fangs, which was produced and published by both media outlets. When the reporter first learned of jaguars being killed for their fangs, it felt like a horror novel: “It seemed to me that it was a topic that journalism definitely had to address so that people in power [would] hear about it [and] look for a solution,” Navia Gabriel said. “Unfortunately, it is true that [Chinese citizens] are pulling fangs out of jaguars. They are selling them in China and other Asian markets at prices as high as gold or cocaine, exorbitant prices. I discovered that it was not isolated hunting, but a mafia who is entering this area and is earning thousands or maybe millions of dollars, that was a sad finding.” “For me the award means a big boost, something that makes me see that I was not wrong, that it was worthy to investigate,” continued Navia Gabriel. “And also, to establish a relationship with Mongabay has been terrific. This work wouldn’t have been possible without the important support of Mongabay, at a time when it is more difficult to do investigative journalism because there is a big lack of resources and time, so I’m grateful to El Deber, to Mongabay, to all the team that has been part of this great project,” he said. Speaking on behalf of Mongabay Latam, María Isabel Torres, Program Manager for the Lima-based Spanish language bureau of Mongabay.com, said, “At Mongabay Latam we believe that [it] is key to promote collaborative alliances between journalists and other media in different countries, not only to integrate resources and capabilities, but also to broaden the impact of our stories. Our partnership with El Deber is a great example of that.” Agreeing with Torres, Navia Gabriel‘s editor at Mongabay Latam, Alexa Eunoé Vélez Zuazo, said, “The award confirms how powerful and necessary alliances [are] between the media in Latin America [and] among journalists to unveil issues of great relevance, and put them on the radar of the authorities. Mongabay Latam has followed the problem of jaguar trafficking in Bolivia since the first complaints began in 2016, but it was with El Deber that we worked on the first special stories.” Of Roberto Navia...
Mongabay in the news, December 2018
Our reporting appears in places beyond the bounds of our main website and its multiple language subdomains when other outlets republish, quote from, or re-report our findings. Highlights from this past month center on radio broadcasts: after our writer Jeremy Hance was interviewed by National Public Radio’s environmental news program Living on Earth late in November, the interview was broadcast on hundreds of stations around North America. Public Radio International picked up on that and in December shared an article about it with all their affiliate stations around the U.S. Elsewhere our Justin Catanoso was interviewed by North Carolina Public Radio about his coverage from the latest round of climate treaty negotiations in Poland for Mongabay, which was heard on its state-wide news talk program, “The State of Things.” Numerous Mongabay reports were also republished in their entirety in December, including an article about tracing the safeguards against illegal logging in Vietnam by our Chris Humphrey, which later appeared at Asia Times. Mongabay publishes on a Creative Commons basis and encourages media outlets to republish our features in their own publications [learn how to do this here]. Here’s a selection of outlets our reporting appeared in during December 2018: Asia Times, Asian Correspondent, Business Standard, Can-India News, El Ciudad Ano, El Comercio, Common Dreams, DX, Daiji World, Dhaka Tribune, EJU TV, Earth News, Eco-Business, EcoWatch, First Post, Grist, Huffington Post, IJNet, India Blooms, India West News, Indigenous News, The Inquirer, Morung Express, Mother Jones, La Mula, El Mundo, Nagaland Post, New Kerala News, The News Advance, The News Lens, News-Armenia, News D, North Carolina Public Radio, Outlook India, Public Radio International, Pacific Standard, El Pais, El Popular, Pulitzer Center, Quartz, The Quint, RIA Novosti, Riau Online, SciDev, Scroll, La Semana, The Sentinel, Shillong Times, Sierra Magazine, The Statesman, Telegana Today, Than Nien, WESA Radio Pittsburgh, and Yahoo News Taiwan. Banner image of a lava lizard in Ecuador by Rhett A. Butler for...
New Opportunity: Mongabay Financial Controller
At the heart of Mongabay is a spirit of innovation. We’re open to trying new ideas, adapting existing models, and phasing out underperforming projects in our quest to deliver the best products and services possible given our resources. Due to our unique culture and global, at-home staff, the most successful employees at Mongabay are amazing at working independently, and produce consistent high-quality work by taking initiative and thinking creatively about solutions to problems. Mongabay is excited to announce the opening of the financial controller position. The Financial Controller specifically, in addition to solid nonprofit financial management experience, is someone who can truly embrace new ideas and technology in order to creatively manage the financial processes of a large, virtual, global organization. For a full detailed job description and how to apply, please click...
New Opportunity: Staff Writer – Madagascar
Mongabay is excited to announce a Staff Writer – Madagascar position. Mongabay has been covering environmental issues in Madagascar for almost 20 years. In addition to publications on our global site, Mongabay.com, our Madagascar-reportage in English is compiled on a dedicated website, http://wildmadagascar.org/. Mongabay.com is expanding its coverage of environmental and conservation news in Madagascar and has created a new staff writer position dedicated to the country. The full-time staff writer position will produce multiple stories per week about conservation and environmental issues in Madagascar published in English and possibly in French as well. This staff writer will develop and produce articles working closely with colleagues in the Mongabay editorial team to discuss story ideas and coverage plans. For a full detailed job description and how to apply, please click...
Bioacoustics paper published in Science
In 2017, Mongabay’s Conservation Effectiveness series looked at what the scientific literature tells us is working and not working in the field of conservation. The series produced award-winning reporting which generated wide-ranging discussions across conservation. One of the key conclusions from the project was that conservation studies generally haven’t been designed to rigorously assess effectiveness of projects, interventions, or strategies. After the series wrapped up, we kept thinking about this issue and whether there may be other ways to measure conservation outcomes. Zuzana Burivalova, the Princeton scientist we hired to oversee the academic research component of Conservation Effectiveness, uses bioacoustics in her field work. This prompted conversations about applying bioacoustics to evaluating conservation effectiveness and eventually spurred Burivalova, Mongabay Founder and CEO Rhett Butler, and Eddie Game from the Nature Conservancy to write a paper, which was published yesterday in Science: The sound of a tropical forest. “An increasing number of ecologists and conservation scientists are using bioacoustics in their research,” said Butler. “We argue that bioacoustics could be used to strengthen zero deforestation commitments, monitor biodiversity at scale, and provide a mechanism for evaluating the effectiveness of conservation projects and interventions. Our hope is that the paper raises visibility for everyone working on bioacoustics.” The paper calls out two opportunities: using bioacoustics to strengthen corporate zero deforestation commitments that are being adopted by companies in the palm oil, timber, and cacao sectors, among others; and creating a world-class central repository for bioacoustic data that can be used by researchers. “The dream is a scenario where zero deforestation companies are funding real-time monitoring of forests, with data fed into the cloud for use by scientists, giving us a better picture of what’s working and what’s not working in conservation and landscape restoration,” said Butler. “Combined with satellite data and networked camera traps, we’d have a much clearer picture for measuring trends in wildlife populations.” To date, the paper has attracted significant media attention, with more the 30 media outlets covering the study within 24 hours of publication. Butler also penned an op-ed for Singapore’s Straits Times about how bioacoustics could support zero deforestation commitments. And Mongabay covered the paper as...
New Opportunity: Contributing Editor – Africa
Mongabay.com is now expanding its coverage of environmental and conservation news in sub-Saharan Africa and is excited to announce the opening of a full-time Contributing Editor – Africa position. This new editorial position will be responsible for the production of daily news and feature stories in English. The editor will help to grow our team of contributors focused on Africa’s environment, manage assignments, edit articles, and ensure adherence to grant guidelines and reporting expectations. This is a high-visibility, high-impact role with room for growth. For a full detailed job description and how to apply, please click...
