Environmental journalism is under attack

Attacks against environmental journalists have increased dramatically around the world, according to a study report launched by UNESCO to commemorate World Press Freedom Day.

UNESCO and the International Federation of Journalists interviewed 905 journalists in 129 countries. Between 2009 and last year, more than 70 percent of reporters were attacked while working on environmental stories ranging from mining and deforestation to protests and land grabs.

There have been more than 300 reported attacks in the last five years alone, a 42% jump from the previous five-year period. The attacks take many forms, from legal threats and online harassment to physical violence and death threats — although physical attacks were the most common. They were carried out by authoritarian governments, companies and criminal groups.

As an environmental journalist, I am horrified but not surprised. I’m also somewhat relieved that there is data documenting the stories journalists share with each other while in the field or catching up over a meal. This is the kind of ugly thing that doesn’t go away unless you look it in the face.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being an environmental reporter. Wandering the depths of a forest makes for a great day’s work. But sometimes the remote nature of this work can be a risk. Working in isolated areas while reporting on issues such as logging or illegal waste dumping can leave environmental journalists “out of reach of immediate help or legal protection,” the report states.

Media companies have also gutted science newsrooms as a result of budget cuts, affecting newsrooms as famous as National Geography It is Popular science. Releasing environmental reporters to work as freelancers can leave them isolated in a different way. According to the research, freelancers suffered more attacks than others who worked full-time in the media.

The UNESCO report describes environmental journalism as “a precarious occupation, often left to small, underfunded media outlets and independent reporters who lack the resources to mitigate the risks they face and respond to the attacks they suffer.”

I know from experience that the work we do can irritate a lot of people. Holding a company, government or criminal organization accountable for wrongdoing makes a story worth telling. It may also be a story worth suppressing in the eyes of the perpetrator.

State actors were responsible for about half of the reported attacks against environmental journalists. This follows the rise of experts and politicians trying to undermine public trust in the media, along with the rise of misinformation campaigns about climate change.

This affects all types of journalists, of course. Reporters Without Borders released its World Press Freedom Index today, which shows where journalists face the most backlash. “This year is notable for a clear lack of political will on the part of the international community to enforce the principles of protecting journalists,” the organization states.

The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has made this year particularly deadly for journalists, where there have been a record number of attacks on media outlets, according to Reporters Without Borders, citing that more than 100 Palestinian reporters have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces. .

This is also the biggest election year in world history, with more people voting in national elections than ever before. Elections often portend more violence directed at journalists, Reporters Without Borders warns. And diminishing those voices can prevent voters from making more informed choices at the polls.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to do our work, even in the places where reporters have sought refuge. I recently returned from a reporting trip to Costa Rica, which has historically been a sanctuary for journalists in Central America. It is now home to hundreds of journalists from Nicaragua and Guatemala who have had to flee for fear of government reprisals. I met an editor who opened her home to a reporter who walked through the rough terrain with little more than the clothes on his back to get there. But the 2022 election of right-wing president Rodrigo Chaves Robles, who criticized any press that criticized himstarted to destroy that safe haven.

I am reminded how lucky I am to do what I do with the protections I have in the US, even though I am facing the possible return of a president who spent much of his last term deriding legitimate journalism as “fake news.” while simultaneously rolling back more than 100 environmental protections in the nation.

The identities we carry beyond being journalists are also under attack. Women suffered online attacks more often than men, the survey found. I’ve also found, as an Asian-American journalist, that race shows up in angry comments to my stories — like one reader who told me in an email to “go back to your home country… and try to get that country to support your climatic position”. .” The Philippines, where I was born, is one of the nations with the most attacks about environmental defenders.

At least as a reporter, I have an escape hatch when the story ends. This is not an option for many of the people I interviewed who face violence in their struggles to protect their homes and the environment. In 2022 alone, at least 177 land and environmental defenders were killed – enough to lose one person every two days, according to the group Global Witness which counts deaths each year.

I find solace in the camaraderie I’ve found with other journalists documenting our beautiful planet and the marks we leave on it. Along with your report, UNESCO also highlighted the work of several environmental photojournalists, including a photograph by Manuel Seoane of a lone person in a small boat stranded on a dry, cracked lake bed. It is Lake Poopó, in Bolivia, which has disappeared in the last decade. It is “a stark reminder of the harsh reality of climate change,” writes Seoane in Instagram. “In a world where misinformation spreads quickly, it is crucial to tell this story.”

In an email to On the edgeSeoane shared a quote from Rufino Choque — the person in the photo who is part of the Urus indigenous people:

We, the Urus, were called “the water people”. We spend our entire lives inside the lakes, everything we use and consume comes from there. The lake was our only asset. Since the lake dried up we have also changed, we have become sick, even our skin looks different. Just like birds shed their feathers, so do we.

Amelia Holowaty Krales contributed to this report.