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Status: Open
Type:
- Grant
Theme:
- Environmental journalism
- Investigative journalism
Deadline: Ongoing
Key Information
- Eligibility: Grants are open to professional journalists and media organizations from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Stories can be produced in any of the following mediums: print, television, radio, or online. Some of the criteria that EJN will consider in judging the applications include experience in investigative reporting, particularly on wildlife or environmental issues;
- Funding amount: Grants of up to $2,000.
- Type of funding: Programmatic
- Target countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda
- Application languages: English, Kiswahili, or local languages.
Wildlife crime and trade, rampant in East Africa, not only threatens biodiversity, but also has a bearing on climate change, security, economic stability and human health. Indeed, wildlife trafficking is suspected to have played a role in the spread of the disease driving the COVID-19 pandemic.
Media coverage of the illegal wildlife trade helps expose these crimes and inform the public about the risk they pose to our world. Such attention can also lead to improved legal action and the adoption of stricter laws that seek to curb wildlife trafficking.
Successful applicants are expected to put these grants toward travel for field reporting, research and production. We also expect all applicants to attend a series of virtual Investigative Media Roundtables that will begin in October.
This opportunity is part of EJN’s East Africa Wildlife Journalism project, which aims to boost coverage of conservation and wildlife issues in the region and is supported by funding from the US Department of the Interior and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Focus Areas
News stories have traditionally focused on government seizures of contraband rather than investigating why the trade thrives, supply and demand drivers or the syndicates helping make it happen.
While we’re prioritizing story proposals focused on illegal wildlife trafficking, we are also interested in other investigative pieces looking at environmental crime. These include, but are not limited to, stories on illegal logging, mining or sand harvesting, the trade in timber, such as sandalwood, dumping of hazardous waste and overfishing.
Read more about the project here.
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