The Rainforest Journalism Fund (RJF), launched in September 2018, represents a major investment in international environmental and climate reporting. Through the Pulitzer Center, the RJF will support nearly 200 original reporting projects over five years, along with annual regional conferences designed to raise the level of reporting on global tropical rainforest issues like deforestation and climate change–leading to stories that make a difference. The RJF will support and build capacity for local and regional reporters based in the Amazon Basin, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia, as well as international reporters working in those regions. The RJF is supported by the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI). For more information about the RJF, please see our announcement and update.
To apply for a Rainforest Journalism Fund reporting grant, please visit the RJF Grants page.
Applications for regional projects are independently reviewed by Advisory Committees, composed of experienced journalists, and are expected to propose projects related to tropical rainforests in each region.
To learn more about RJF's three focus regions and Advisory Committees and view the regional reporting projects supported by the Rainforest Journalism Fund, please visit the following pages:
For more information about international RJF projects, please visit the International RJF page.
To see the stories and projects supported by the RJF and also by the Rockefeller Foundation, Omidyar Network, MacArthur Foundation, and individual donors, please see the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforests Issue Page.
Filmmaker Tom Laffay, whose short film “Siona: Amazon’s Defender’s Under Threat” recently premiered on The New Yorker, gives a behind-the-scenes look at his long-term film project with the Siona people of Putumayo.
A project called the "grain train," with its planned trajectory through the Brazilian Amazon, divides Indigenous groups and those who support rural development.
An ambitious infrastructure project in the Brazil is increasingly opposed the closer it gets to the heart of the Amazon—an area that has been defended by Indigenous communities for years.
The movement led by Chico Mendes in the 1980s has seen a resurgence in the face of government attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The territory of the Colombia's Indigenous Siona people has been caught up in armed conflict for decades; now the group is balancing the needs for demining efforts and for isolation.
The overuse of pesticides poses serious socio-environmental threats. But in Pará, disinformation threatens efforts to control their use.
Four species of endangered primates are endemic to the Mentawai Islands. Their last refuge is Siberut National Park.
Four species of endangered primates are endemic to the Mentawai Islands. Their last refuge is Siberut National Park.
With Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on a ‘mission from God’ to settle the Amazon and carve it up for economic gain, Beijing’s growing reliance on the country for its soybean supply spells disaster for the region’s peoples and its rainforests.
Bolivia has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. Intensive agriculture and livestock are primarily responsible, but coca production is destroying the forest too.
In the tenth episode of this series, Leide Aquino and Julio Barbosa discuss their upbringing in the forest and the social movements that moved them.
In the closing interview of the series, rubber tapper Raimundão reflects on the past, present, and future of the Forest Peoples Alliance.
Adiela, a Siona Indigenous leader, follows the spiritual guidance of her elders and clears landmines from her ancestral territory in the Colombian Amazon, in hope that her people may some day return.
This multi-media project focuses on the evolution of mining in Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Amazon, using geolocation to identify mining sites and environmental impact.
Redwood is in high demand in China and at risk of extinction.
Mercury, the toxic quicksilver that pumps through the veins of gold miners is a necessary evil to extract gold in the Amazon. In this series, we take you on a trip through the underworld of the trade.
Siberut Island is a unique island of Mentawai Islands, in the western of Sumatera Island, Indonesia. Siberut Island is the home of four endemic primates. The Siberut forest is under threat from a 49,440 hectares timber consession, a company-owned 19,876 hectares forest plantation, and 2,600 hectares of land and forest will be developed as a special touristic area.
This project shows how the illegal exploitation of gold results in environmental destruction, forest cover loss, and water pollution in mining zones.
With journalists in Indonesia and Brazil, the stories in this project highlight how tropical forests in Costa Rica, Indonesia, and Amazonia might ameliorate—or, to the contrary, aggravate—climate change. The project also explores the current impacts of climate change on people and wildlife.
Sister Jean believes that God made us free. With that freedom, we made many terrible choices, like burning down the Amazon. Now, it is not God's job to save us -- that's up to people like Sister Jean.
How Flávio Dino's administration has violated the environmental rights of traditional communities in favor of commodity exploration and extraction with Chinese capital.
A scheme in the Democratic Republic of Congo is giving local communities the right to own and manage rainforest – both providing employment opportunities and halting deforestation.
This project explores the ways that conservation efforts and community interests collide in Hkakabo Razi National Park, part of the Northern Mountain Forest Complex in Myanmar’s Kachin State.
An expedition to Resex Guariba Roosevelt, in Mato Grosso, through the Brazilian Amazon wildness, to show life inside the most dangerous region of the Amazon.
Eliza Barclay explains how the Vox reporting team focuses on key superpowers of three tree species in three rainforests to convey their unique ecological roles and the urgency of protecting the them.
Pablo Albarenga was named the Photographer of the Year and winner of the Latin America Professional Award in the Sony World Photography Awards 2020.
Pulitzer Center invites environmental journalists to apply to the first Congo Basin RJF Convening
The Pulitzer Center is pleased to announce, as part of the Rainforest Journalism Fund, that we are now accepting applications from journalists working in Southeast Asia interested in taking a Hostile Environment/First Aid Training (HEFAT) course. The deadline for applications is February 10, 2020.
After a successful year of supporting rainforest journalism in the Amazon, the Rainforest Journalism Fund is expanding its global reach.
We have to decolonize ourselves: Eliane Brum, a Brazilian member of the Amazon Advisory Committee, addressing the first convening of the Rainforest Journalism Fund (RJF).
Pulitzer Center founder and Executive Director Jon Sawyer reflects on the Rainforest Journalism Fund's first convening, which brought together 80 journalists who have reported from across the Amazon basin.
Spearheaded by a coalition of Latin American journalists, the project helped shape the backdrop for a New Yorker piece on a court victory for an Ecuadorian indigenous group.
The Pulitzer Center is pleased to announce the launch of the Rainforest Journalism Fund, a five-year, $5.5 million initiative focused on raising public awareness of the pressing environmental issues facing the world’s tropical forests.
In this lesson, students will hear from a journalist who uses writing skills to describe under-reported place, and practice the same skills in original writing.
As students across the world learn remotely, Pulitzer Center is committed to supporting educators with engaging resources that are online and easily printable.
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