How Greenpeace’s investigative site, Unearthed, used satellite imagery and database mapping to reveal hundreds of fires on environmentally protected land in the English moors – including dozens that could be illegal.
Over the last 12 months investigative journalists in Bangladesh uncovered cases of corruption, abuse of power, money laundering, and institutional negligence. The biggest topic last year, as in previous years, was corruption. But in picking the top stories of 2021, we also considered significance and novelty, the diversity of issues covered, impact, and a focus on the vulnerable and marginalized sectors of society as much as the depth and techniques used in any investigation.
Networks of business interests, government officials, and criminal groups run illegal operations that harm the environment in multiple ways. They drive worldwide illegal trafficking in wildlife and seafood, timber, minerals, hazardous waste, and toxic chemicals. Such environmental crimes are sometimes connected with other criminal activity, such as drug trafficking and money laundering.
Myanmar’s new regime leaders escalated their forceful crackdown on nationwide protests with sweeping restrictions on the media, severely curtailing independent journalism in particular, and opening the way for serious environmental crimes.
The South African investigative site Oxpeckers uses a combination of data analysis, collaboration, and interactive data visualization tools to tell the most compelling stories about the land and those accused of damaging it. From mining to environmental crimes and wildlife trafficking, it has brought investigative techniques to beats like mining that were once the preserve of business reporters.
When journalists are killed or threatened for investigating environmental crimes, the story can go cold. But the Paris-based Forbidden Stories nonprofit brought together 40 journalists in 15 countries with the aim of completing the work local reporters could no longer pursue. The result is the Green Blood project.
