Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism

Created in 2023, Defensores Ambientais aims to promote environmental democracy and to protect environmental activists in Brazil. Bringing together five institutions (ABRAJI, Transparency International - Brazil, Centro de Vida Institute, Ethos Institute and Amazônia Nativa Operation), the project has five main goals:

• Knowledge development
• Training of environmental defenders
• Offering technical support to public and private agents
• Expanding the debate on access and protection rights
• Promoting the Escazú Agreement

Abraji works to select, mentor, provide security support in the field and train Brazilian journalists, especially those covering in the Amazon. In this context, the project organized a course in Belém, in August 2023, in which ten journalists were selected to be trained on environmental journalistic investigation, on producing stories on climate change and on the role of environmental defenders.

Following the training, Abraji and the Center for Investigative Journalism selected three proposals for investigative reports on the climate crisis: “Extreme heat causes cassava shortages in the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Land”, by Jullie Pereira, published in Inforamazônia; “Jari carbon credit project deceives communities and invades public lands in Pará”, published by journalist Carolina Bataier on the De Olho nos Ruralistas website and “Locals at the mouth of the Amazon River get a salty taste of climate change”, published in Mongbay by Rodrigo Pedroso and Rudja Santos.