The 31st World Press Freedom Day Conference, which took place this year in Santiago de Chile, aligned with a catastrophic event on the American continent that would put to the test the very topic that UNESCO had convened 2,500 journalists, press advocates and others to discuss – journalism and freedom of expression in the context of the global environmental crisis.
In the past week, the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil, was hit by the biggest flood ever recorded in its history. In some regions, the volume of rain predicted for five months fell in just 15 days. At least 90 people have died so far, entire cities have been underwater and even the capital, Porto Alegre, remains flooded.
The catastrophe is yet another in Latin America to highlight the importance of journalism when informing about extreme climate events and preparation, recovery and adaptation to climate impacts.
This is “the big topic that journalism has to cover”, Peruvian journalist Veronica Goyzueta told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) during the conference, “A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the Face of the Environmental Crisis.”
Goyzueta is the co-founder of the Amazon-based journalism platform Sumaúma and was one of the panelists in the session “Saving the planet and protecting democracy: same fight,” on May 3.
“It is essential that the press discuss environmental coverage, because it is a topic that has to increasingly enter newsrooms and in a transversal way, not as a section of the newspaper, but as a topic that has to touch all areas,” Goyzueta said.
“It is something that speaks about people's lives, and we really need to understand what is happening with the climate, that it is no longer a crisis and climate change, but a climate emergency,” she said. “Events like these to discuss that are fundamental. It is a discussion that I would not even say is late because it is important, but it has to be constant.”
Discussions during the conference dealt with climate misinformation, community media and Indigenous voices in environmental coverage, mechanisms for accessing environmental information, and challenges faced by journalists when covering climate issues in Latin America, among others.
Threats to freedom of the press and expression as a whole were also discussed, such as the journalism sustainability crisis, new surveillance and spying technologies used against journalists in Latin America, and digital and physical violence against women journalists.
During the conference, UNESCO launched the study “Press and planet in danger,” which examines attacks against journalists covering environmental issues. The study is based on a survey carried out by UNESCO and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) with 905 journalists from 129 countries. More than 70% of them said they had been the target of attacks, threats or pressure while carrying out their work. Of these, 41% were victims of physical attacks.
Brazilian journalist Catarina Barbosa highlighted the specific risks that women journalists covering the Amazon face. She represented the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji), of which she is director, in the session “What does journalism need to help save the Amazon?”, on May 4.
“There are incredible works being developed by women, but there are some particularities. For example, how we dress in the field is a concern that men generally don't have when they go to the field. It’s common to pair up with a reporter and have him be completely unconcerned,” she told LJR.
“Women working in the field are at risk of being raped, especially if they do not have a safety protocol. So it is very important that we talk [about it], and several organizations have discussed a protocol that can guarantee the minimum so that the female journalist can go into the field safely.”
Barbosa also pointed out that the deaths of Brazilian Indigenous affairs expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips, murdered in June 2022 in the Amazon and remembered in several debates during the conference, are evidence that the danger faced by journalists when covering the region “is real.”
The deaths of Pereira and Phillips had a major impact on journalists working in the Amazon. Brazilian journalist Karla Mendes, a reporter for Mongabay, spoke to LJR about how she changed her way of working after that.
“I remembered a lot of situations where I put myself at risk to do a story without really realizing how risky it was. When they disappeared I couldn't sleep well, I just thought that that situation could have happened to anyone,” Mendes said.
“Since then I've been doing very strict risk assessments before going to the field. My first trip to the Amazon after this tragedy was in August 2023. And for the first time ever, I took a satellite communicator. I said, ‘I won't go without it,’ because it works offline and I can send offline messages with my location to my editors and people on my team,” she said.
Among the sessions Mendes participated in at the conference were the workshop “Data-driven investigations in the Amazon Rainforest: journalism contributions for the governance in the region,” which she co-taught with Bram Ebus, a Dutch journalist based in Colombia, on May 3.
Ebus is coordinator of Amazon Underworld, a cross-border investigation into organized crime in the Amazon. He spoke to LJR about the importance of collaboration between journalists to investigate the actors behind the destruction of the forest and the environmental and climate crisis.
“When it comes to journalism investigating environmental crimes, it's very important to team up, because the criminals are doing the same. When they work across borders, we as journalists also should work across borders and form journalistic alliances to tackle these cross-border issues and better understand supply chains of gold, cocaine, timber, and look for the international responsibles,” Ebus said.
According to UNESCO, the conference held in Santiago, is “the beginning of a roadmap to tackle the violence against journalists reporting on environmental issues and against other critical voices as well as to face the growing problem of mis/disinformation regarding climate change.
The UN agency said it will collect the ideas debated at the conference and will soon publish concrete measures in this regard, looking toward the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Also known as COP30, the event will be held in Belém, in the Brazilian state of Pará, in November of next year.
