WACC is one of many NGOs drawing attention to climate justice and the problems surrounding environmental reporting. Now, Reporters Without Borders has released a report confirming a serious increase in attacks on journalists and bloggers trying cover any kind of environmental damage. Those investigating industrial pollution or the destruction of forests are at particular risk.

Deforestation and Pollution says that, "Journalists have no difficulty covering global warming. Last year’s international conference in Copenhagen was accompanied by unprecedented coverage of environmental problems, even in those countries that are the most hostile to media freedom. But investigating the causes of global warming, which include deforestation and industrial pollution, continues to be much more dangerous. The main obstacle to quality independent coverage of these two issues is to be found in the complicity between the private sector (such as companies and involved in logging and mining) and local authorities."

With the help of its worldwide network of correspondents, Reporters Without Borders has gathered information about incidents in Indonesia, Argentina, El Salvador, Gabon, India, Azerbaijan, China and Morocco. Behind each of these threats and attacks, there were big corporations, criminal gangs or government officials who had been corrupted by money from mining or logging.

The report points to the involvement of some governments in serious press freedom violations that deprive the public of crucial information about cases of pollution or deforestation. It describes, for example, the way the government in Hanoi has tried to suppress any debate about the environmental impact of bauxite mines being operated by a Chinese company. And a field investigation in Argentina established that journalists are under pressure from both supporters and opponents of a mining project.

Mining companies (Aluminium Corp of China, China Metallurgical Group and the Canadian companies Yamana Gold and Pacific Rim), oil companies (Shell, Addax and Synopec), wood pulp companies (Sinar Mas and Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper) and two French multinationals (Bolloré and Areva) are identified in the report as having a direct or indirect role in cases of intimidation or censorship.

This is the second report that Reporters Without Borders has published on this subject. In September 2009, a report entitled "The dangers for journalists who expose environmental issues" looked at 15 cases of journalists and bloggers who had been killed, attacked, jailed, threatened or censored for covering environmental problems in Russia, Cambodia, Bulgaria and Brazil.

Reporters Without Borders has reiterated the appeal it launched during the December 2010 Copenhagen Summit: "The media are needed to gather information and disseminate it to the public. As regards the challenges of climate change, the media help to establish credible, independent diagnoses of the state of our planet. Their analyses play a crucial role in helping decision-makers to adopt policies and rules that will lead to the desired changes."

WACC believes that climate change in its deepest sense needs to be understood as an ethical issue raising serious questions about how people define their role and responsibilities towards each other, future generations and other species. As such, journalists can articulate facts and impacts, provide alternative voices and perspectives, contextualise local and global causes, explore and explain adaptation. Crucially, they can promote policies and projects that tackle the structures that create and perpetuate inequality and injustice.

Deforestation-and-Pollution.PDF
For further information: Visit WACC's web page on Climate Justice.

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