EJN Launches Three New Projects in South Africa and India, the Western Amazon and the Mekong Basin 

At the start of this year, we launched four new projects to improve the quality and quantity of ocean journalism around the world.  Now, we’re pleased to announce three more projects, where we’ll work across three continents to build journalists’ capacity to report on water governance, climate action, and wildlife crime and conservation.  

Pathways to Net Zero in India and South Africa 

Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, it’s been widely understood that reaching net zero emissions by mid-century is key if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.  

More than 70 countries have set ambitious targets to achieve net zero in the coming decades. Still, there remains a lack of understanding about what that transition would entail. What steps are needed to move towards the target, and what will countries need to do to make sure they are on track?  

To help journalists ask – and get answers to – these questions, we have embarked on a year-long media project to strengthen climate-related reporting in India and South Africa, with funding from the European Climate Foundation. We will equip journalists in India and South Africa with the skills they will need to cover their country’s transition to an energy neutral economy. 

By supporting the production of in-depth media coverage on pathways to net zero, we aim to improve  public awareness about these pledges, and maintain public pressure to hold policymakers accountable to their commitments.   

Conservando Juntos (Together for Conservation)  

Wildlife crime and illegal logging, fishing and mining activities are rampant in the Amazon Basin – threatening its vast biodiversity, natural resources and the Indigenous communities that call it home.  

To respond to this crisis, a consortium of organizations, will implement Conservando Juntos (Together for Conservation), a five-year project led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and supported by USAID. 

Internews (through the South America team of the Americas Program Unit and the Earth Journalism Network), will carry out a range of activities to strengthen media capacity in the region such as Information Ecosystem Assessments, Organizational Capacity Assessments, and grantmaking to journalists and media organizations.  

It is our goal that these initiatives will support the media, Indigenous peoples and local communities to safely expose — and ultimately, prevent — transnational conservation crimes such as illegal logging, species trafficking, illegal fishing and illegal mining, and to defend their territories and conserve biodiversity in the region. Stay tuned as we'll be announcing media grants and story grants soon. 

Mekong Water Governance from a Gender and Social Inclusion Lens

More than 300 million people in Asia depend on the mighty Mekong river, which traverses nearly 5,000 km from its source in the Plateau of Tibet to the South China Sea, and flows through six countries: China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.  

Rapid economic development in this region has increased the demand for water and sand, and led to the mushrooming of dams and hydropower plants along the river, contributing to the loss of riverine biodiversity and water pollution.  

Women and girls, who are usually tasked with household chores that directly involve the use and management of water, have the least say in its governance.  

With the river under pressure, their lives and livelihoods are also at stake. This project, with funding from Oxfam, aims to center the voices of women and marginalized people in media reports on water management in the Mekong River basin, and to shed light on the environmental impacts of these inequitable socio-cultural practices. Selected journalists will attend a media workshop in the region next month. 

To learn more about EJN project activities, check out our Current Projects page.

Banner image: Vast landscape in southern South Africa, near the Garden Route and Hermanus / Credit: Uta Scholl via Unsplash.