Media Grants to Strengthen Coverage of Environmental Crimes and Sustainable Solutions 2025

Media grantees from the first two cohorts have worked to increase coverage of environmental crimes and their impacts, reporting on issues such as how illegal mining affects the health of riverside communities in the Amazon, the encroachment on indigenous lands in the Colombian Amazon, the migration stories of indigenous people in Peru in response to the growing threat of environmental crimes, and a series of reports narrating the transnational trafficking of Amazonian turtles at the borders of Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.

Themes

• Examples of possible activities include, but are not limited to:
  • Grants for reporting for journalists and communicators
  • Mentoring of journalists and communicators for the production of stories about environmental crimes
  • Investigative and/or collaborative reporting projects with a transboundary, regional focus
  • Networking and partnership activities for journalists and communicators
  • Field trips and/or training workshops that bring together journalists, communicators, and specialists on environmental crimes in the Amazon and result in the production of reports.

Funding Information

• They anticipate supporting 5-8 organizations with funding of $5,000 to $10,000 each.

Eligibility Criteria

• Media organizations, networks of journalists and/or communicators, universities, and journalistic institutions focusing on environmental crimes reporting in the Amazon region are invited to apply.
• Civil society organizations, community groups and research institutes will also be considered, provided they operate with strong media and communication components. Please note: they will not consider applications focused on advocacy, activism or political campaigning.
• They welcome applications from organizations in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, with a preference for those with established networks in the Amazon region and those willing to carry out transboundary work involving the four target countries that are the focus of the project. They generally prefer to support organizations that carry out work in the country where they are based, but they will consider applications from organizations seeking to collaborate with groups in the Amazon region of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.
• Organizations must be legally registered in their country and maintain a bank account with the capacity to receive international funds.
• For this grant opportunity, they will only accept applications in English, Spanish and Portuguese (translations of this call for proposals are available at the top and bottom of the page). Unfortunately, they cannot consider applications in other languages at this time. Applicants must either have a working understanding of English, Spanish or Portuguese or have a translator available to assist in communication with Internews staff. However, please note that project outputs, such as stories or journalism tools and resources, can be produced in any language.
• Organizations that have received support from Internews or EJN in the past are eligible and they will consider past performance during the selection process.
• Applicants are required to be transparent about the use of generative AI tools, if any, to revise their proposals. EJN reserves the right to disqualify applicants from consideration if they have been found to have engaged in unethical or improper professional conduct, including, but not limited to, submitting AI-generated content as their own.

Judging Criteria

• All applications they receive are reviewed and discussed by a panel of international judges, comprising Internews staff and experts in environmental journalism.
• Applications will be evaluated using the following assessment criteria:
  • The overall quality of the proposal;
  • The relevance of the proposed project to the objectives and priorities of this grant program and the Together for Conservation project goals;
  • The potential impact of the proposed project, including the quality and effectiveness of the project design;
  • The innovative characteristics of the proposed activities;
  • The financial viability and cost-effectiveness of the proposed project;
  • The ability of the applicant to carry it out;
  • The geographical spread of the grantees.

For more information, visit EJN.