- Mongabay India has been the go-to platform for a large swathe of audiences, from a day by day commuter to a policymaker to a practising wildlife conservationist.
- In 2024, we expanded our attain by way of partnerships with regional media, capability constructing applications, and multilingual content material, participating numerous audiences throughout the nation.
- Mongabay India earned a number of awards, together with the Greenaccord Worldwide Media Award and the ‘Vasundhara Mitra’ award, whereas additionally influencing coverage and fostering environmental consciousness.
In 2024, Mongabay India continued to solidify its place as a trusted supply of environmental journalism. This yr we broadened the attain of our tales, participating numerous teams from grassroots communities to regional policymakers.
Mongabay India is the India-specific platform of the worldwide setting portal Mongabay, which publishes in two languages, English and Hindi. Our tales are rooted in evidence-based journalism. We discover themes that aren’t lined in mainstream media and use a number of codecs to distil complicated ideas. A mix of those elements has made Mongabay India a go-to platform for a large swathe of audiences, from a day by day commuter to a policymaker to a practising wildlife conservationist.
In 2024, the Mongabay India staff produced greater than 500 textual content and 100 video tales in English and Hindi, whereas constructing partnerships with regional language media to have these tales translated into extra Indian languages. Our content material has reached greater than 30 million individuals by way of our web sites and social media channels. Additional, with a number of collaborations and improvements in editorial themes, this yr, the Mongabay India staff managed to achieve past the standard readership we have now been gathering since our launch in 2018.
Forging partnerships for environmental storytelling
Mongabay India was a part of the Green Literature Festival 2024, which goals to mainstream environmental literature in India. As a information associate, we had been a part of a panel dialogue on environmental accuracy versus sensationalism in media experiences. Managing editor S. Gopikrishna Warrier and senior editor Shailesh Shrivastava additionally performed a workshop on environmental writing. Equally, with AltEff (the All Residing Issues Environmental Movie Competition), the staff performed a masterclass to amplify environmental filmmaking and mentored three filmmakers who produced nice videos for us. These movies had been screened at completely different venues throughout India as a part of AltEff, encouraging interactions between filmmakers and their audiences.
This yr additionally noticed us collaborate with some mainstream regional media retailers to additional amplify environmental information in numerous geographies and languages. The Hitavada, one of many oldest English dailies in central India compiles Mongabay India tales right into a bimonthly “environmental digest” whereas Keraleeyam, a Malayalam journal, has been adapting Mongabay India content material and has interviewed our Managing Editor on on COP29, making the nuances of this main local weather convention accessible to audiences in Malayalam.
In 2024, Mongabay India strengthened journalist capability by way of workshops, masterclasses, and coaching periods, equipping reporters with instruments for impactful environmental storytelling. As a part of ongoing collaborations, senior manufacturing editor Aditi Tandon, a trainer with the Open Local weather Reporting Initiative (OCRI), educated a cohort of journalists from throughout South Asia on local weather reporting. Senior digital editor Kartik Chandramouli, senior editor Shailesh Shrivastava and affiliate editor Manish Mishra anchored workshops with the Earth Journalism Community and In Previous Information. Saumitra Shinde, Kundan Pandey and Gopi Warrier participated within the Biennial Conference of the Indian Society for Ecological Economists (INSEE) and organised periods on the significance of lecturers speaking to the media.
Working with the social impression group Asar, Mongabay India collaborated with Baimanus, a Marathi media portal to work with grassroot reporters and convey out our tales within the third most spoken language in India. By means of characteristic articles and movies we highlighted local weather and gender points impacting probably the most susceptible individuals and carried these tales in English on Mongabay India and in Marathi on Baimanus. Asar was concerned with figuring out the reporters and coaching them on the nuances of journalism and local weather change.
Exploring novel themes
This yr, we pushed the boundaries inside environmental journalism and focussed on telling the tales on two key matters that drive the Indian financial system: indigenous information techniques and the function of native communities within the sustainable conservation of pure capital; and the second on climate-conscious improvements in agriculture and small trade clusters. In each instances, financial push and pull elements within the adoption of applied sciences, and insurance policies obtainable for simple adoption had been examined. The collection had been pure extensions of certainly one of our thematic focal factors of 2023, environmental economics.
Managing editor Warrier’s podcast, “Environomy”, seemed on the intersection of setting, economics and the Indian center class over the previous 30 years, since India’s financial liberalisation. The podcast broke new floor within the protection of setting from an economics perspective within the Indian media area, due to Warrier’s insights borne from an environmental journalism profession which gave him a ringside view.
A second podcast, “Wild Frequencies”, lined the theme of bioacoustics and its software of soundscapes in wildlife monitoring and conservation, with fascinating recordings from the sphere, and intensive interviews with the few researchers working on this rising discipline.
Our storytelling additionally underscored the setting’s important connection to human and ecological techniques. We informed tales with intersectional themes such because the impression of local weather change on sports activities, local weather impacts on school-going kids and high quality of training, and did a deep dive into local weather anxiousness, together with the psychological well being impacts of local weather change.
Whereas we wrote, we additionally learn quite a bit this yr. We had ten guide critiques on a number of matters starting from species accounts to memoirs.
Geographically, we continued to publish from everywhere in the nation: from Leh’s Local weather Cup to Andaman’s mangroves and wild pigs, and from new frogs and the dwelling root bridges in wet northeast India to the Ram-mol technique of combined cropping in dry Kachchh in Gujarat.
Beginning simply earlier than the COP29 at Baku, we explored local weather finance and associated ideas in our in-depth articles in English and Hindi.
Shaping coverage outcomes
Mongabay India’s tales drove tangible impacts in 2024 from influencing authorities coverage and conservation to sparking discourse on important environmental points.
After publishing a narrative on Bengaluru’s parks in Might 2024, the Karnataka authorities ordered opening parks for longer hours, inside a fortnight. The parks are a vital and free refuge for outside employees to relaxation and recuperate throughout summer time.
The Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal (NGT) raised concerns concerning the building of proposed five-star resorts within the neighborhood of Assam’s Kaziranga Nationwide Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Web site, following an article printed on Mongabay India.
The Chief Minister of Manipur took notice of a narrative printed in Mongabay-India on Manipur ponies and a gathering of presidency officers was performed to handle among the factors raised within the story. Shortly after the story was printed, the CM announced on X, that the Manipuri ponies have been given a brand new house on the authorities allotted fields in Imphal. Equally, the NGT additionally took up a suo-moto case based mostly on this story, on Manipuri ponies.
The Authorities of Madhya Pradesh has expedited the method of building a museum in Patangarh village, Dindori district, following the publication of our story on Gond art. The story highlighted the artists’ struggles and the necessity to protect the artwork kind instead of origin. Authorities officers visited the village, and the development of the artwork museum is now underway.
Following a narrative on the declining income of forest produce collectors, notably these engaged in gathering natural medicines, the Madhya Pradesh authorities developed a plan to spice up the earnings of those collectors, and opened entrepreneurial centres known as Van Dhan Vikas Kendras throughout 20 districts, predominantly inhabited by Significantly Weak Tribal Teams (PVTGs).
Recognition for our work
In 2024, Mongabay India garnered prestigious awards and recognitions for its contributions to environmental journalism.
Mongabay India was awarded with the Greenaccord Worldwide Media Award in October for “originality and consistency in protecting environmental matters” in Asia.
Kirloskar Vasundhara Worldwide Movie Competition 2024 honoured Mongabay India with the ‘Vasundhara Mitra (Organisation)’ award for its work in environmental filmmaking.
Our contributors Barasha Das and Surajit Sharma gained the Finest Movie award on the ‘Inexperienced Frames: VATAVARAN Brief Movie Competitors and Competition 2023’ for his or her Mongabay India story on Ruza, a novel agriculture observe in Nagaland.
Banner picture: Painted storks are the one water birds that nest with pelicans on this village. Picture by Abhishek N. Chinnappa for Mongabay.
