Pulitzer Center rainforest reporting supports and builds capacity for quality, independent journalism in three key regions: the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia. 

READ THE REPORTING | ABOUT | HOW IT WORKS | APPLY FOR A GRANT | IMPACT | RESOURCES

ABOUT

The new Rainforest Reporting Grant is an evolution of the Rainforest Journalism Fund (RJF), which was launched in 2018. Over five years, RJF has supported more than 300 projects and 600 journalists who produced 1,700 reports. Their impacts range from: a sanction against corporate mining activities in DRC,  a policy revision on a government agriculture program in Indonesia, and international attention on widespread illegal wildlife trades. Read more about RJF’s background and achievements here.  

Through this grant, the Pulitzer Center continues to provide short-term project support to journalists reporting in tropical forests, but seeks more ambitious proposals: larger in scale, and collaborative and innovative in approaches. The initiative will continue to provide resources and capacity to journalists through selective training and networking opportunities with other Pulitzer Center grantees and Fellows.

The Rainforest Reporting Grant is supported by Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI).

HOW IT WORKS

The Rainforest Reporting Grant supports journalists, staff and freelancers, to report on issues in tropical forests, especially in three main rainforest regions—Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia. Applications for regional and international projects are reviewed by editors who are experts on the issues and regions. Journalists can submit applications in five languages (English, French, bahasa Indonesia, Portuguese, and Spanish) and can produce reports in these or other languages.

Transparency and governance is a cross-cutting theme for all of our focus areas. We seek applications with in-depth reporting that follow illegal wildlife trades across borders; shed light on harmful forest extraction industries; and investigate the systems, organizations, and people that enable corruption.

APPLY FOR A GRANT

The Rainforest Reporting Grant funds costs associated with reporting projects on rainforests, with an emphasis on unreported or underreported issues in the regions and how they connect on a global scale. The amount of individual grants will depend on the project and detailed budget planning, such as travel costs, fees for local reporting partners, and translation and related costs. Most grants fall in the range of $8,000 to $15,000, but depending on project specifics, such as expenses for technology or consultancy, these rates may be higher.
Specific grant terms are negotiated during the application process. Learn more about how to submit a successful Pulitzer Center proposal by clicking here.

“The RJF program is incredibly helpful for journalists who are eager and have been waiting for opportunities to report on environmental issues but are limited with money and time—RJF answered all these problems by providing not only funding but also technical support where we could spend days in the field and come back with reports we are passionate about.”

REZZA AJI PRATAMA
Southeast Asia Rainforest Journalism Fund grantee

“As freelancers, it was impossible to do this work with one outlet. The Rainforest Journalism Fund allowed us to embark on three different trips to the Amazon, so not only it facilitated our logistics, but also allowed us to report in a very safe way.”

CHRISTINA NORIEGA
Amazon Rainforest Journalism Fund grantee

IMPACT

Impact has been at the center of the Pulitzer Center’s mission of raising awareness and public understanding of underreported issues since our inception in 2006. Recent projects supported by the Pulitzer Center have struck down bad laws, helped end harmful government programs, and borne witness to events and atrocities that otherwise would be hidden from public scrutiny.

Les Explorateurs

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT IMPACT

RIN-RJF Reporting Inspires 'Explorers' Comic Book Series

Explorers is a series of comic books in which storylines are inspired by articles produced as part of the Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) and the Rainforest Journalism Fund (RJF), two Pulitzer Center initiatives that highlight topics with little or no coverage in three forest areas: the Congo Basin, the Amazon, and Southeast Asia.


CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT IMPACT

Pulitzer Center-Supported Reporting Spurs Brazilian Police Investigation Into Abuse of Indigenous Children

The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) of Amazonas state in Brazil announced it would launch an investigation into the abuse of Indigenous Jamamadi children, following reporting by Pulitzer Center Rainforest Journalism Fund grantee Tatiana Merlino.


CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT IMPACT

RJF Photos, Reporting Receive Honorable Mentions in SOPA Awards

A photography report and two reporting projects supported by the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Journalism Fund (RJF) received honorable mentions at the SOPA (Society of Publishers in Asia) 2023 Awards.

RESOURCES

We believe in radical sharing of methodologies and lessons learned from the projects we support so they may serve as valuable resources and blueprints for other newsrooms, universities, and civil society organizations pursuing similar projects. Click the Toolkits and Tips tab below to view the full set of resources, or view our featured resources below.


CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT RESOURCE

Rainforest Reporting Toolkit

We have prepared a Rainforest Toolkit that can be useful in your reporting and investigations. The information is sorted by themes of interest, including geolocation and archiving.

Gastro-Colonialism in Merauke

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT RESOURCE

Environmental Reporting: Gastrocolonialism

How do you report on “gastrocolonialism,” a concept that is not yet broadly known? Our Rainforest Journalism Fund (RJF) Southeast Asia grantees have turned an unfamiliar term into powerful journalism stories, popularizing the concept across Indonesia.

Screenshot of the Interactive 'Fire in Rural Properties' Map.

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT RESOURCE

How the Journalists Behind 'Smoke Screen' Created Their Interactive Map

Smokescreen is a story from Ambiental Media that explains the link between forest fires and deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, published in Portuguese and English with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Fund and the Pulitzer Center.

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