ROG: Research into deforestation and environmental pollution remains risky
Investigative journalism into the causes of climate change continues to involve risks. The difficult and dangerous working conditions often result in legal prosecution, imprisonment, violent attacks, and threats.
Research on deforestation and environmental pollution remains risky. This is one of the conclusions of the second report on environmental reporting and press freedom just published by Reporters Without Borders ROG. The ROG report on Environment Day states that some media workers, such as the Brazilian editor of the magazine Jornal Pessoal, Lúcio Flávio Pinto, continue to be prosecuted or, like the Uzbek journalist Salidschon Abdurachmanow, are still in prison. In addition, there are a number of new cases of violent attacks, threats and harassment against journalists, legal persecution of media employees and censorship.
Many of the reporters investigated the environmentally destructive practices of oil, mining and timber companies. A major obstacle to independent, in-depth reporting on the causes of global environmental problems is the complicity between companies involved in resource extraction and local authorities. Industries worth billions, such as the mining, oil and timber industries, are often particularly protected by governments and the flow of information about scandalous, high-risk extraction techniques and environmentally damaging resource extraction is suppressed.
The problem of deforestation, which goes hand in hand with major corruption scandals in many countries, is also a challenge for independent journalists. Reporters in Indonesia, for example, who take a critical look at the
The current ROG report goes on to say that journalists who confront the reduction of forest areas - by 70 percent since 1950 - and illegal deforestation must expect repression. It is also common for timber companies in the Southeast Asian country to bribe journalists to refrain from writing critical articles.
In northern Argentina, a dispute over the environmentally damaging effects of copper mines on water quality has become so heated that reporters have also been caught between the fronts of supporters and opponents of copper mining.
mining project: In the provinces of Catamarca and Chaco, ROG recorded attacks on journalists both by security forces serving local politicians and by violent opponents of the mining industry.
Many of the reporters investigated the environmentally destructive practices of oil, mining and timber companies. A major obstacle to independent, in-depth reporting on the causes of global environmental problems is the complicity between companies involved in resource extraction and local authorities. Industries worth billions, such as the mining, oil and timber industries, are often particularly protected by governments and the flow of information about scandalous, high-risk extraction techniques and environmentally damaging resource extraction is suppressed.
The problem of deforestation, which goes hand in hand with major corruption scandals in many countries, is also a challenge for independent journalists. Reporters in Indonesia, for example, who take a critical look at the
The current ROG report goes on to say that journalists who confront the reduction of forest areas - by 70 percent since 1950 - and illegal deforestation must expect repression. It is also common for timber companies in the Southeast Asian country to bribe journalists to refrain from writing critical articles.
In northern Argentina, a dispute over the environmentally damaging effects of copper mines on water quality has become so heated that reporters have also been caught between the fronts of supporters and opponents of copper mining.
mining project: In the provinces of Catamarca and Chaco, ROG recorded attacks on journalists both by security forces serving local politicians and by violent opponents of the mining industry.
