The costly reality of environmental journalism in Africa

On 25 December 2025, troopers from the Congolese presidential guard arrested Stéphane Shisso, a digicam operator for Nyota TV, owned by Moïse Katumbi, a outstanding opposition politician in the nation, and took him to Kimbembe army camp in the southeastern metropolis of Lubumbashi.

Mr Shisso and his colleague Guelord Shamba had produced a report on land degradation and erosion brought on by mining in Kolwezi, a metropolis in Lualaba Province referred to as a worldwide centre for mining cobalt and copper in the West African nation. The video, which aired on Nyota TV and Mbengu TV, included interviews with residents who criticised native authorities for failing to behave and highlighted the dearth of public infrastructure.

According to reports, Mr Shisso was initially taken to the Kimbembe army camp in Lubumbashi, the place he spent a number of days incommunicado earlier than he was transferred to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on 5 January 2026, and detained in the Ndolo army jail. As of July 2026, Mr Shisso had been detained for over six months with out being formally tried earlier than a court docket or notified of the fees in opposition to him.

Fearing that he too could be arrested after witnessing Mr Shisso’s apprehension, Guelord Shamba went into hiding. Colleagues and kin reportedly misplaced contact with him from late January. Both journalists had additionally just lately misplaced their fathers and have been unable to attend their funerals as a result of of detention and compelled exile.

Weeks earlier, one other environmental reporting project turned harmful for journalists—this time in Ghana.

In the Obuasi space of Ghana’s Ashanti Region, unlawful gold miners, regionally referred to as galamsey operators, ambushed five journalists and environmental officers. The reporters who have been overlaying an operation to close down unlawful mining services fled the scene in a chaotic chase that resulted in a extreme street accident. Akwasi Adomako of PleasureNews suffered a damaged leg requiring surgical procedure, whereas his colleagues from Luv FM, Adom News, and Citi FM sustained head accidents and chest traumas.

The Ghana incident illustrates an vital however usually missed reality of environmental journalism. Journalists overlaying environmental points routinely face hazards related to troublesome terrain, street accidents, illness publicity, harsh climate circumstances and industrial websites. Yet these risks turn into considerably larger when environmental reporting intersects with unlawful economies and highly effective political or business pursuits.

That intersection was already evident a yr earlier than the Obuasi incident.

In October 2024, 4 journalists and media staff from Ghana’s Multimedia Group have been detained and beaten by safety guards working for a mining firm whereas reporting on alleged environmental degradation at a mining web site in the Ashanti Region. 

The victims embody journalist Erastus Donkor; Majid Alidu, a drone pilot; digicam technician Edward Suantah; and driver Edward Arko. They had gone to the positioning to doc the renewed destruction of portions of the newly restored Asenanyo Forest Reserve, resulting in the air pollution of streams becoming a member of the Ankobra River, which was additionally polluted. 

These incidents are half of a wider sample of assaults in opposition to environmental journalists.

A latest monitoring report by the International Press Institute (IPI) documented 26 separate attacks and threats in opposition to environmental journalists in sub-Saharan Africa between October 2025 and March 2026 alone. The circumstances concerned journalists reporting on unlawful mining, logging, oil administration, land and water administration, amongst different points. According to the IPI monitoring, state safety companies have been the principle supply of threats in the circumstances it documented, though personal corporations, armed teams and native actors have been additionally implicated. 

When in contrast with the broader realities of the African media panorama, environmental journalism is quickly rising as essentially the most harmful beat for journalists on the continent.

Generally, journalism in Africa is closely constrained by press freedom violations coupled with different challenges dealing with the media. According to the 2026 World Press Freedom Index revealed by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), journalism in greater than 90 of the 180 nations assessed worldwide faces extreme constraints, labeled as having troublesome or very critical circumstances. Further evaluation signifies that 34 of these nations are in Africa, together with Nigeria, Niger, Mali, and Chad.

Newsrooms on the continent face a rising problem of underfunding, digital assaults, a rising spate of restrictive laws like state cybercrime acts, in addition to the problem of fast-rising data dysfunction occasioned by the proliferation of synthetic intelligence.

While the scenario is mostly worrisome for journalists throughout each beat, environmental journalists arguably face a distinctly wider and extra extreme assault. They function on the risky intersection of multi-billion-dollar extractive industries, transnational organised crime, and fragile ecosystems. A reporter investigating unlawful mining might concurrently appeal to the eye of authorities officers, safety companies, mining corporations, highly effective state and non-state actors, legal networks and communities whose financial survival relies on the exercise being investigated. That makes the environmental beat unusually complicated.

The Hidden Cost Of Following The Money

Environmental journalism is usually described as reporting about forests, rivers, local weather change, wildlife and air pollution. In Africa, that description is more and more proving to be far more. Some of the continent’s most consequential environmental tales are actually tales about cash.

Illegal mining is related to land possession, licensing, taxation, political patronage and illicit monetary flows. Illegal logging usually includes cross-border trafficking networks. Wildlife trafficking connects native poachers to worldwide markets. Oil air pollution can elevate questions on company accountability, regulatory seize and the distribution of public sources.

Environmental journalists, due to this fact, don’t merely examine environmental injury; they examine the financial and political system that enables that injury to proceed. This is one cause environmental investigations can turn into harmful.

The founder and CEO of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Dapo Olurunyomi, stated that environmental journalism has moved past documenting environmental degradation to investigating illicit monetary flows, corruption and governance. He pointed to reporting on mining in the Congo area and the Niger Delta, the place the main focus is more and more shifting from the environmental injury itself to the techniques and pursuits that maintain it.

The veteran journalist described the event as a brand new second for environmental journalism, requiring larger consciousness not solely from governments and society, however notably from journalists, whom he described as carriers of information succesful of shaping public coverage and neighborhood relations.

That is very vital as environmental destruction turns into more and more intertwined with financial and political pursuits. In components of northern Nigeria, together with Zamfara, Katsina and Niger, he famous, pure sources have turn into sources of illicit wealth for battle actors. Yet protection can cease at labels resembling banditry or terrorism with out analyzing the monetary flows generated by useful resource exploitation.

“The environmental journalist, therefore, must ask questions that go beyond what is happening to the land or water: Who owns the operation? Who benefits? Who issued the licences? Where does the money go? Which officials or institutions are responsible for oversight?”

That shift turns environmental journalism into investigative journalism succesful of exposing highly effective pursuits.

Mr Olorunyomi argued that newsrooms should reply with specialised coaching, sources and devoted beats. Journalists want to grasp mining protocols, licensing regimes, procurement, monetary flows and the governance techniques behind environmental exploitation.

He famous that organisations resembling Reporters Without Borders and the International Press Institute have begun work in this space, however stated far more stays to be achieved.

The want for that specialised capability turns into clearer when journalists depart the newsroom and enter the environments the place these tales unfold.

South African investigative environmental journalist Fiona Macleod, founder and editor of the Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism Centre, famous in an interview with Dialogue Earth that the transition of Environmental Journalism from a “nice to have” beat to a vital one has penalties for journalists. “The more important environmental stories become to national economies and public policy, the more likely they are to collide with powerful interests,” she added.

Reporting Beyond The Newsroom

The bodily calls for of environmental reporting additionally make the beat notably troublesome. Investigative tales regularly require journalists to depart main cities and journey to distant forests, mining communities, oil-producing areas, wetlands, border areas and conflict-affected territories.

Across the area, a journalist investigating unlawful mining might need to enter forest reserves and mining communities the place safety preparations are weak or typically nonexistent. The additional journalists transfer from the newsroom, the much less fast institutional safety they might have. This is very vital for freelancers and small native newsrooms. A reporter working independently might have little to no entry to safety officers, attorneys, insurance coverage cowl, an emergency evacuation plan or an employer keen to intervene if the project goes improper.

In August 2023, Nigerian investigative journalist Damilola Ayeni, then an editor with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), travelled to northern Benin as half of a cross-border investigation into environmental conservation across the Pendjari National Park. While photographing the park for the investigation, Beninese police arrested him and accused him of belonging to a jihadist terrorist group. 

Mr Ayeni was held incommunicado for 9 days, throughout which neither his colleagues nor his household knew his whereabouts. According to FIJ, a person figuring out himself because the police commissioner in Parakou demanded 800,000 CFA francs (about $1,315) in alternate for his launch. He was finally released with out cost following sustained diplomatic engagement by the Nigerian Embassy in Benin.

Mr Ayeni’s expertise highlights an often-overlooked dimension of environmental journalism in Africa, the place reporters investigating conservation, biodiversity and guarded areas more and more function in territories the place environmental governance overlaps with counterterrorism operations, border safety and militarised policing. In such contexts, journalists are uncovered not solely to the risks posed by legal networks or personal pursuits but in addition to the danger of being considered by a nationwide safety lens.

The result’s that unusual investigative journalism work will be misconstrued as espionage or terrorism exercise, inserting environmental journalists in danger of arbitrary detention, extended interrogation and legal prosecution.

The dangers are, due to this fact, not restricted to what occurs when a journalist publishes a narrative. In many circumstances, the hazard begins on the very onset of the story when the journalist decides to journey into the territory the place the story is unfolding; and as soon as environmental reporting enters these areas, the results can lengthen far past the journalist’s fast bodily security.

The scale of the menace

A 2024 UNESCO study discovered that a minimum of 749 journalists and information organisations reporting on environmental points have been focused between 2009 and 2023 by homicide, bodily violence, detention and arrest, on-line harassment or authorized assaults.

UNESCO’s survey of greater than 900 environmental journalists from 129 nations discovered that 70 per cent had skilled assaults, threats or strain linked to their work. Among these affected, two in 5 subsequently skilled bodily violence. The organisation additionally recorded a minimum of 44 environmental journalists killed over the earlier 15 years, with solely 5 of these circumstances having resulted in convictions, thereby leaving an impunity fee of nearly 90 per cent.

The UNESCO knowledge comes from a survey administered on a choose set of environmental journalists globally and doesn’t imply that 70 per cent of all environmental journalists worldwide have been bodily attacked. Similarly, the 749 determine represents documented circumstances involving journalists and information retailers, reasonably than a census of each assault that occurred.

Despite this nuance, nonetheless, the findings present that the threats in opposition to environmental journalists will not be restricted to bodily violence or harassment. Journalists overlaying the environmental beat face on-line harassment, SLAPPs, intimidation, detention, censorship and strain from employers and authorities.

UNESCO’s analysis additionally discovered that just about half of the environmental journalists surveyed had skilled self-censorship because of concern of retaliation or conflicts of curiosity, whereas one-third reported having been censored by their very own editorial organisations. When journalists start to keep away from tales as a result of they concern retaliation, the results are that communities lose entry to crucial details about air pollution, land degradation, unlawful extraction and different actions that straight have an effect on their lives. And in many African communities, the issue is additional compounded by the disconnect between environmental journalism and public understanding.

The problem of widespread ignorance

The threats confronted by environmental journalists in the area are additional worsened by the information hole between the issues journalists search to carry to gentle and the individuals affected by them. When there’s such a disconnect, environmental journalists are sometimes left in the weak place of being remoted from each the communities they search to amplify and the sources of assist they want.

In an interview with the CJID, Mr Ayeni famous that ignorance is one of the largest challenges dealing with environmental journalism in Africa.

“Many either don’t know the importance of environmental conservation or, in the face of poverty, simply don’t care. So, your mission, no matter how well stated, cannot save you if you become their victim,” he stated.

State complicity and abuse of cybercrime legal guidelines

The dangers turn into much more sophisticated when environmental reporting collides with restrictive legal guidelines. Across Africa, governments depend on legal guidelines regarding cybersecurity, nationwide safety, defamation, public order, amongst others to prosecute journalists. Vague provisions are sometimes used to criminalise official journalism, notably reporting that exposes corruption or public-sector inadequacies.

The 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index recognized the weaponisation of national-security and cybersecurity legal guidelines as a major regional development. RSF reported that 24 of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 nations have been labeled as having “difficult” press freedom circumstances, whereas 5 have been labeled as very critical.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, ranked a hundred and thirtieth globally, with RSF noting the extreme safety pressures confronting journalists, notably in the nation’s conflict-affected jap areas.

The method ahead

Environmental journalist and investigator Gustavo Faleiros has equally emphasised the significance of detailed preparation earlier than coming into high-risk environments. Discussing investigative reporting in distant territories, Mr Faleiros pressured the necessity for journalists to develop an in depth plan, conduct prior analysis, and determine dependable native contacts earlier than travelling.

Mr Ayeni additionally famous the significance of planning forward of an environmental investigation.

“My 2023 experience opened my eyes to the risks of such work, and today, I plan better and get more people involved. Many times, an environmental story takes you to the remotest, most dangerous parts of the country,” he stated.

Mr Ayeni additional famous that coordinating with a trusted crew is as vital as different security measures.

“Two months ago, for instance, I was in a Kogi State LGA almost completely forgotten by civilisation and the government. But I kept updating a few trusted people with information about my movement. If they didn’t hear from me within a stipulated time, they knew to escalate it to the appropriate quarters.”

The dangers dealing with environmental journalists require greater than generic security recommendation. Newsrooms, civil society teams and media freedom organisations should rethink how reporters are educated, supported and guarded.

For Mr Olorunyomi, the intervention begins with specialised coaching.

“The usual security training, which is almost never really available, should be complemented by training that helps journalists understand mining protocols, licensing regimes, cadastral systems, procurement and the financial flows behind natural-resource exploitation”, he stated.

He additionally argued that environmental crimes more and more require journalists to work throughout borders. Because monetary flows and resource-related crimes usually function by networks, newsrooms ought to construct regional partnerships and develop shared security protocols.

For reporters themselves, preparation should start earlier than an project. Mr Ayeni recommends understanding who controls the territory, who advantages from the exercise being investigated, which companies are concerned and what to do if communication is misplaced. On a latest project in Kogi State, he stored trusted contacts commonly up to date on his actions so they may escalate the scenario in the event that they stopped listening to from him.

He, nonetheless, famous that particular person warning can’t exchange institutional assist, noting that Newsrooms ought to present safety and first-aid coaching, emergency communication techniques, authorized assist and evacuation plans, notably for freelancers and reporters working in distant or high-risk areas.

Mr Olorunyomi additionally urged civil society organisations to make larger use of regional mechanisms, together with the African Commission’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“Civil societies must be able to trigger attention very quickly,” he stated, including that strategic litigation and regional human-rights mechanisms can present an extra layer of safety when journalists are attacked or detained.