Pulitzer Center announces Grant Applications focusing on Rainforest, Ocean and Transparency

The Pulitzer Center aims to support projects that illuminate and investigate how the governance of rainforest and ocean ecosystems fits with domestic and international climate policies and actions. They hope that reports from the projects can serve as resources and catalysts for the climate community and interested members of the public as they prepare for the next round of COP discourse and negotiations.

The projects should focus on rainforests and ocean ecosystems, and the industries and management around them in regions that are most impacted, such as the Amazon, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia. They seek project proposals that explore the intersection of climate policies and systemic issues affecting rainforests and the ocean, as well as the impact on local communities and surrounding ecosystems. Projects should consider these questions: why the issues need to be reported, why they haven’t been addressed, and what is at stake. And, equally important, what are the solutions, who should be involved, and who should be held accountable?

The projects can investigate how regulations, or the lack and misuse of them, enable industrial operations which exacerbate climate impacts; they can track supply chains that result in the destruction of protected areas and displacement of local communities; they can examine carbon trading or blue carbon schemes and how they are linked to lowering emissions; or they can showcase how scientific innovation helps vulnerable communities reduce climate risks.

The projects should consider the voices of local and marginalized communities, and they can be cross-border investigations. They encourage projects driven by collaboration, innovation, and the use of data and technology. They look for projects with strong distribution plans with and commitment from credible local, regional, or international news outlets (print, online, broadcast, visual, radio, or a combination).

Focus Areas

• Examples of topic ideas to explore:
  • Land use and large-scale agro-industry
  • Indigenous rights and policies
  • Carbon storage and market schemes
  • Extractive industries (mineral or deep-sea mining)
  • Climate change and its effects environment and workers
  • Oil and gas exploration
  • Cross-border timber, wildlife, and fisheries trade and supply chains
  • Renewable energy
  • Marine geoengineering and marine carbon dioxide removal
  • The blue economy, blue carbon, and ocean finance
  • Blue carbon and ecosystem value
  • Industrial waste management and environmental pollution
  • Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), including ocean actions
  • Shipping: emissions, pollution, labor

Funding Information

• Grant amount range between $5,000 to $15,000, depending on project specifics.

Eligibility Criteria

• Grants are open to journalists, writers, photographers, radio and podcast producers, and filmmakers. Staff journalists and freelancers of any nationality are eligible to apply. Newsrooms or teams may also apply, the team lead should be the main applicant.

Selection Criteria

• Proposed projects should:
  • Clearly show why the proposed topic is important for COP 30 dialogues and actions.
  • Be original and in-depth.
  • Demonstrate attention to editing, reporting, and safety standards (for example, showing throughout pre-reporting research, avoiding unnecessary travel, and implementing safety measures for journalists and communities).
  • Have a strong and wide distribution with relevant target audience.
  • Utilize innovative reporting techniques, such as data journalism and multimedia engagement.
  • Involve collaboration. This could include local and/or Indigenous journalists, or domestic-international media partnerships.
  • Projects involving collaborations (such as between national and/or Indigenous journalists, or between domestic-international media partnerships) will get extra consideration, though projects by solo journalists or single media outlets are acceptable.

For more information, visit Pulitzer Center.