To the new york based committee to protect journalists in the past decade 13 reporters doing environmentally related work have been killed another 16 such deaths are currently under investigation the environment beat is perilous because it often involves exposing the abuses taking place as more and more minerals are extracted lucrative minerals and when theres enough money involved there will be those who are willing to kill for their share of it still those stories keep coming out especially when the reporters involved thinking about safety in numbers joined forces later in this program well hear from George Monbiot a journalist and climate campaigner who has spent the past 3 decades crusading against the practices of the fossil fuel industry the inertia of the Political Class and the complicity of the Corporate News outlets that have failed to give environmental stories adequate coverage but 1st the listening posts Nick Moorehead on the dangers of that kind of journalism and. A new media collaboration designed to protect reporters and get those stories out. In the mid 1990 s. There was a real estate boom in india construction around the country skyrocketed concrete was in high demand as was the sand that goes into it so sand mining grew into a 1000000000. 00 industry environmental regulations were put in place to try and limit the mask excavation that was taking place but they did little to help today illegal mines are removing billions of tons of sand a year with devastating effects on the environment and water bodies and entire ecosystems are being destroyed in addition labor is exploited local populations are abused and corruption is running the organizations that operate the legal minds in india as the sand matthews and for the journalists covering the story and exposing their criminality it can be deadly work you dont even know theyre going to get it within. This is. A journalist from the north indian state of the dish the problem actually began when joginder thing began to receive a lot of information about the illegal activities and corruption by a minister of the ben ruling party in the north of me instead of that but in 2015 after campaign of harassment he was set on fire by local people and police and then shortly he survived the 7 day and then eventually died the sound must stop extremely poor fully ready to do lots of things to silence reporters. Not only judge on driver skill but that sound from me is traveling all around the world so thats why its not only an indian story thats a global story. Nicko is used in the batteries of electric cars as more and more drivers try to reduce their Carbon Emissions by going electric the demand for nickel has increased but while these cars may help with their pollution in developed countries they appear to be taking a devastating toll on the environment in Court Tomorrow in 2014 a swiss mining conglomerate the solway group reopened a dormant nickel mine at the phoenix site near lake is about the largest lake in guatemala then came the stories illnesses skin rashes air pollution water shortages failed crops poisoned fish and then in march 2017 lake is about 200. Angered by the governments slow response to their grievances the local fishermen this union blockaded the mine bringing operations to a standstill the standoff lasted weeks costing the Company Millions pressure began to mount and the local authorities to end the blockade on march 27th tensions at the phoenix mine boiled over the journalist carlos truck was there with his camera that only saw no money in the luggage him and that the skull orders. To let it in we went up to the mine a tough past 12 and already we could see that the riot police have been deployed as well as a special offers on the seattle if there are points here and it all seems rather premeditated so that the local Police Forces supplemented the riot police they start to fire tear gas and then restart our live rounds. At that moment in the middle of everything when you see all these tear gas flying about you see they start firing was when i was able to document with my camera i didnt just see them either a fisherman carlos i actually document them and they listen to not believe discolored couples must one of several. That night truck were told. A local news channel to give his account kerry what happened. When that 5 which contradicted the official version given on the same brokaw asked by a Police Spokesman who said they werent even carry weapons let alone firing at and. Not out of mind what. Is after this broadcast went out i received really serious threats that night they called me 3 times i remember clearly the 1st call they said by carlos where you want to talk to. People who were coming up to me saying carlos there are a lot of cops in total they have a least and weve heard the 2 names on that then on august 4th when the 17 magistrate issued an arrest warrant theyre going 7 fishermen and myself journalists. Its never acknowledged that hes a journalist hes described as. A trade unionist and members officials he knew and at that point he goes into hiding. I was living in hiding for a year and a half year and a half with no contact with the outside world i had to be on the run up keeping a low profile i couldnt even go shopping because i had an arrest without out on the phone or in the car. Together sing and close chalker just to environmental journalists among many who have been targeted for their work and in both cases there is strong evidence to suggest that local Law Enforcement was not only culpable but acting on orders from above which begs the question why would local Law Enforcement and the politicians they work and put the interests of the Mining Sector ahead of Public Safety concerns and usually you can find the answer to that question by following the money. Last year the top 40 Mining Companies in the world and 683000000000. 00 in. Theres a lucrative trickle down from that typically these companies will have multiple operations around the world but will outsource a lot of the day to day work like labor transport or security to local companies which are often owned or connected to local politicians and if journalists expose environmental abuses taking place at these mines it can jeopardize the entire operation so these journalists many of them often coming from indigenous communities without a lot of parents status of taking on the most powerful in their countries and globally as well if you look at mining multinationals for example theres always the nexus between politicians local Law Enforcement authorities and industrialists and we connect the dots we find that these people are exploiting not just naturally the 4th of but also a very large section of the underprivileged across the world. And its journalist who are in touch with these local population with these local citizens and theyre bringing this nexus how many of these issues happen in most cases in the built in countries. This doesnt mean that the bill countries dont have a role to play because of the structure of the industries that we see doing it is to pollute the environment. Are actually Foreign Companies so you have American Companies going in Companies European companies with investments in developing countries were going to regulations are not a streak of they are in the developing world or they are not enforced in the same way so its a double standards problem its fine you know for me to be involved in a business that does this abroad i wouldnt do it at home and often the lack of care taken by the environment is what sparks local conflicts which then leads to clashes. So those. Extremely important to show to the consumers whoa big brands are pretending to be green but when you look more precisely the supply chain and then you can discover that they are not thats green. Youre on the shark is the founder of the bid in stores a network of journalists based in paris it continues the work of other reporters facing threats prison or murder. Its latest project is called green blood which is being made into a documentary that will be released next year. You came here for very important results also finishing the world of isolated on the french press its all together 40 reporters from around the world to carry on the investigations of environmental journalists who have been silenced including chicken that are seeing in color struck in june the project went live publishing in 32 news archives cross the globe thats extremely important to do that kind of collaboration because we are. Sending a powerful signal to enemies of the free press that if you wanted to silence or we porters you would never silence the story because no other story is in Commission New york in nairobi in france in south america everywhere. Bulge again that a single portrait on the sand my fears in north india sun yet i was frank editor of the lead has been covering them in the south which has also come with consequences ravi shankar says that she has been constantly harassed starting with your suit spread escalating to rape threats being followed it was even c. C. T. V. Footage leaked online of her meeting with the source a not so subtle reminder that she and those she speaks to are being watched shankar was also one of the journalists who worked on the green blood project one of the key things that a journalist sitting in chennai was unable to. So when the investigative journalist from forbidden stories the guardian lim mourned. The boys when all of them came together and you know reached in. Freedom of information requests being filed in their own countries they went and they spoke to the end users in their countries the people who were important. And this sort of took everything to a completely different macro scale so it was not just this one journalist in the south indian state off them or not but it became something that people across the world really does viewers across the world could relate to thats the red stain crosseyed is an investigative journalist with the Guardian Newspaper and also a member of the green blood project she traveled to guatemala to work with called the phoenix mine story so when we visited some of the nearby villages we found a lot of people particularly children have skin rashes its been 2 years since color was charged he is still awaiting trial because his court date keeps getting to late while in the country crosseyed follow up from his case but in doing so i got an insight into what is known in guatemala as criminalize ation its when innocent people are accused of a crime so that they can be dragged into the legal system and therefore more easily controlled we went to the court and on the day they want to call those hearings and stew to have will help in the case be dismissed the judge refused to see him and we had concerns about this judge and we asked for an interior he wouldnt say i came back the next day the cameraman and trying to interview him and his staff south again and said youve just broken the norm you know allowed into the court room the courtroom is a public place oh youve broken the law and so we sat down and then they came a bit made him said would you would you like an interview with the judge give me an interview if you can give us your id. So we gave our press cards and she came back. Is that a photocopy of your press cards the judge has decided not want you know and he would like me to remind you that youve broken the law today in this court room so you get a little bit of a flavor of how this criminalization works. On july 31st call a stroke went to court for the 10th time and once again his case was delayed chuck says that there is no evidence to support the charges against him yet the judge still wont drop this case. While the apparent criminalization of truck continues there has been a development in the story he was covering one month after the green blood project went live as Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the fishermans union and suspended operations at the phoenix mine the court found that the ministry of energy and mines had failed to carry out a proper consultation with the local population when it brought to the mine a license in response to the grilling the solway group said that its operations always performed in accordance with the law we will certainly follow the courts decision however as an employer responsible for the lives of over 2000 Staff Members and their families we will take all possible measures to help. In protecting their livelihoods and the environment the fishermen may have put the miners out of the job there are no easy answers in these stories but thanks to call a stroke and journalists like it they dont go and report. As we put it down to see but as journalists we have to come together and cooperate so that its no longer just a single voice or a single outlet its no longer a kind of joke alone we speak its a whole lot of voices together so for me this is very important this would always be better to tell how things really are together with other media with other just. Maybe but at least the media playing many different roles and society one of which used to the issues on the agenda both political agenda and the public agenda so theres the saying that media are not very good at telling us how to think but theyre very effective telling us what to think about so if the media cover Environmental Issues people are more willing them or prepared to talk about a polish to think about moment well we do unless theyre only the messenger and its really up to the public the people the consumers of the news to actually put pressure on their politicians on their government to ensure that such exploitation of not for the thought of the underprivileged does not take place. The journalists at the forefront of environmental reporting expose the causes and culprits of ecological devastation and the consequences for local communities George Monbiot a british journalist and environmental campaigner cut his teeth in this field more than 3 decades ago hes investigated the damage done by corporations and governments from the amazon to east africa and now devotes his energies to the Bigger PictureClimate Change monbiot his weekly column in the british paper the guardian can have a polarizing effect on audiences hes widely read but has also been derided as 6 an alarmist however as the years have passed and temperatures and water levels have risen the political and media mainstream have come around to what monbiot has been saying all along that humanity is facing an unprecedented threat that only rapid decarbonise ation can prevent i spoke with George Monbiot about a career spent in reporting on climate issues and the Mainstream Medias track record on the story. George monbiot thanks for joining us here at the listening post today thank you its not as though Climate Change hasnt been covered by the news media the criticism is about the amount of coverage and the urgency thats lacking why do you think Media Outlets often not averse to shocking or scaring viewers because thats part of the formula why do you think they take an opposite approach or have with this particular story they have quite deliberately played it down it depends which Media Outlets are talking about if you look at the billionaire press the newspapers owned by billionaires they have a very clear interest in not emphasizing climate breakdown. Because doing so directly offends some of their commercial interests it offends commercial interests of the billionaire class as a whole in the broadcast media its long been perceived as counter aspirational if they can hide something on this stunning caribbean island and take the programs they like to make a film about wonderful houses this is where the magic happens and Amazing Things you can buy and great holidays you can go on. And climate breakdown and environmental breakdown more generally the specter at the feast saying actually all this apparent progress is progress towards disaster and thats not just in the u. K. Its around the world ive met journalists from mexico from india from Southeast Asia who all tell me the same thing that they use journalists are desperate to cover the issues but the senior figures within their organizations just keep nixing it they keep saying no these are the people who have to answer to shareholders well they have to answer to shareholders and public broadcasters. They maybe feel they have to answer the government because i think its much more than just straight forward self interest you know obviously there are commercial interests at play there are political interests at play but theres also a deep fear a real fear of opening up this box for fear of what it might reveal and with an issue like this to admit anything is to admit everything as soon as you start saying ok so climate breakdown is real. Then you start challenging pretty well everything we do the way we travel to work the work we do when we get there the way we spend the money that we get from that work in fact you start to question the entire basis of the economy what if growth turns out to be progress not towards enrichment but towards general destitution so you can see that the moment you lift that lived the moment you start covering the issue and asking the questions you have to question everything. And most people find that terrifying one of the things one often hears from mainstream journalists when theyre called out for not covering the story enough is it a bit of a ratings killer to turn off people dont really click on this kind of story and im just wondering whether you feel that theres actually merit to that argument quite often when ive pushed people for evidence they simply dont come up with it and there is no evidence is just a feeling that you know russian they live in a bit of a bubble executives in media organizations you know hippies know that theyre a culture punks know that theyre a Culture Media executives do not know that theyre a culture theyre a very particular culture theyve got a very particular worldview and it is not the world view of everyone they present themselves as speaking for the ordinary man and woman but they are very far from being the ordinary one but sometimes they might have a point sometimes maybe their coverage is turning people off maybe there economics coverage turns people off maybe their political coverage turns people off but in those cases they say perhaps we should do it better because were not going to stop covering economics were not going to stop covering politics but when it comes to Environmental Issues and so we just stop covering it is it possible to actually get a grip on how much damage the media have done through their lack of reporting honestly theres no question it has massively impeded action because politicians wont act until they are pushed into acting and its very hard to get people mobilized if youre not hearing it on media which has been generally consumed its been pushed to the margins to the fringes on to social media onto alternative media. And thats incredibly useful its very important but its not enough unless its also on the Mainstream Media then the people who are operating at the margins are always going to struggle to reach people who just havent heard that message i want to talk about something you wrote way back in 2007 the editorials urge us to cut our emissions the urge us to raise them. Do you see a tension between those 2 imperatives the that the tension is is almost overwhelming sometimes i dont particularly blame many Media Outlets for it because theyve all got to keep keep themselves afloat and at the moment most of them depend on advertising for their revenue i would like to see Media Outlets ceasing to take advertising for Oil Companies for Gas Companies for cars for planes for holidays which require flights and i dont think thats too much to ask these are industries which should be on the way out anyway youve been at this for a while and im sure the banging your head against the wall metaphor has come up from time to time do you feel that that wall is finally starting to crumble if only a little bit its been 34 years so fond cation really feels like the walls crumbling occasionally it feels like my heads crumbling things are changing and theyre changing i think primarily because of the uprising by young people who say were not putting up with this any longer. The Incredible School strikes the youth climate stripes Extinction Rebellion and similar movements around the world Mainstream Media is very scared about this because i think where is our audience going to come from but also its often been immensely frustrating being shouted out being sworn at by very senior t. V. Executives when i politely suggested perhaps this is an important topic to cover that theres a huge hole in the coverage perhaps heres a way of filling it they have been absolutely clear that they did not want environmental coverage on their channels. As a result if you were to ask me who has done more to impede action on climate breakdown. The media or the Oil Companies id say the media George Monbiot of the guardian thanks for joining us today thank you all and George Monbiot last point that the news media bear more responsibility for inaction on Climate Change than fossil fuel companies do journalists are supposed to speak truth to power no one really expects that of the axons and b. P. s of this world but to varying degrees many Media Outlets this one included are still dependent on the consumption driven fossil fuel powered economy just ask their advertising departments or their shareholders struggling to deal with the industrys economic crisis the digitally generated existential one those people are more interested in bottom lines than future generations their jobs profits and dividends all depend on it and as long as news outlets are as addicted to fossil fuels as their viewers and readers are the Climate Change story will never get the coverage it deserves youve been watching a special edition of our program on the media and the environment well see you next time youre listening post. The story of black man. I have strangled. The story of car in. The field. Passion. Very soon just. The most memorable moments with aljazeera was when i was on air as Hosni Mubarak fell with the crowds in Tahrir Square to all 3. Of them so. If something happens anywhere in the world al jazeera is in place were able to cover this like no other news organization. Were able to do it properly. That is our strength. And a Supreme Court clears the way for a hendo temple to be built at a slight disputed by must that. Hello and welcome to aljazeera live from my headquarters and the meters of upon him also ahead. I have a desire to prove that this country can be much better when it has a government that doesnt lie as much on twitter as. A big brother was left for the president to defend bandaids president to a Supreme Court ruling