Reporting on Environmental and Land Issues: The Solutions Journalism Approach

The Land Portal believes that access to information is crucial for achieving good land governance and securing land rights for landless and vulnerable people. The Solutions Journalism Network is leading a global shift in journalism, focused on what the news misses most often: how people are trying to solve problems and what we can learn from their successes or failures. 

To tell the whole story about how humans affect the environment is critical to shift the way we relate to our planet, and to empower and inspire communities and individuals to take positive action through the power of information. The implications go beyond protecting nature because solutions to repair the environment often restore access and rights to land to the most vulnerable communities. Solutions journalism is rigorous and compelling coverage on how communities and individuals try to solve problems and what can we learn from their successes or failures.

The Land Portal is collaborating with Nieves Zúñiga, journalist and 2022 LEDE Fellow at the Solutions Journalism Network, on a year-long project in which six journalists around the world will be publishing works about land and the environment using the solutions journalism approach. The project aims to facilitate training, dialogue, story production and dissemination on solutions repairing environmental damage and improving land governance. 

The Land Portal Foundation and Solutions Journalism Network invite you to join us on March 9, 2022 to discover a new way of reporting about environmental and land issues and how you can participate in a global shift in journalism.

Presentations:

• Nieves Zúñiga - Introduction and Moderation

• Alfredo Casares - Solutions Journalism: How to Tell the Whole Story 

• Swati Sanyal Tarafdar - Reporting on Land Solutions: Threading the Hows and the Why 

• Mavic Conde - Agroecology and Land Rights: Solutions on two sides of the same coin 

• Romy Sato - Guide to Land Portal Resources for Journalists and Researchers

Nieves Zúñiga is a 2022 LEDE Fellow at the Solutions Journalism Network, freelance journalist, and a research consultant for different organizations including the Land Portal Foundation and Transparency International. She studied Journalism at the University of Navarra and since then she has lived in Ivory Coast, Madrid, the UK and Berlin. Her work has been published in Foreign Policy, Le Monde Diplomatique and more.  

Alfredo Casares is a Spanish journalist and founder of the Instituto de Periodismo Constructivo, an organization that works to develop training programs and consultancy on solutions journalism. Alfredo is Solutions Journalism Lede Fellow 2021 and author of the book "La hora del periodismo constructivo". Alfredo has worked for The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, and Diario de Navarra (Spain), where he founded the first innovation Media Lab in a Spanish newspaper.

Swati Sanyal Tarafdar is an independent journalist from India covering social justice and climate for international publications. She is an alumni of the National Geographic Out of Eden Slow Journalism and University of East Anglia Creative Writing India workshops among others and finds meaning in reporting on narratives from closer to the ground. 

Mavic Conde is a journalist from the Philippines who covers the environment beat and one of the 2022 LEDE Fellows at the Solutions Journalism Network. Her project is about the practice of saving seeds, as a sustainable agriculture practice that doubles as climate action. She has bylines in Bulatlat, Mongabay, and Rappler. 

Romy Sato leads the development of Land Portal's Country and Thematic portfolios, as well as the curation and ingestion of land-related publications and statistical datasets.

Event registration

If you would like to participate in the project as a journalist, please register for this event to learn how to pitch your solution story. The recording will be sent to those who register.