Workshop of the taz Panter Foundation : Green Panter Amazonia
Constructive reporting: The taz Panter Foundation is organizing an international climate journalism workshop with ten journalists from the Amazon region.
taz Panter Foundation | The Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in regulating the global climate. It remains one of the Earth´s most important CO₂ sinks. Encouragingly, deforestation has recently declined—at least in the Brazilian part of the Amazon. However, studies suggest that the region could transform into savannah in the medium term, which would have serious global climate consequences.
Public attention will return to the Amazon by November at the latest, when COP 30—the UN Climate Change Conference—takes place in Belém, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon River. At a time when climate protection and climate journalism are under growing pressure around the world, even as the climate crisis intensifies, the taz Panter Foundation is launching the international workshop Green Panter Amazonia.
We have invited ten journalists from eight countries in the Amazon region – Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana, Colombia, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. We will first have a series of webinars with our colleagues from Brazil and Latin America, and then in person for a project week in Berlin in September. There, they will meet representatives from academia, civil society, and the media to exchange ideas and network.
Mental health for climate journalists
The webinars will cover key topics such as the role of international corporations in the Amazon, the significance of carbon credit trading for local climate protection, and the spread of organized crime in the region. Other focal points include environmental racism, mental health, stress and trauma management for frontline climate journalists, and the impact of climate reporting—and how it can be improved.
The participants will write articles sharing their perspectives on the Amazon´s climate crisis and potential solutions. For us, climate reporting also means highlighting constructive approaches. Their contributions will be featured in a special eight-page supplement of the taz in September.
Our ten guests from Latin America and Brazil will arrive in Berlin in time for the taz cooperative assembly on Saturday, September 13. On Wednesday, September 17, the public will have an opportunity to meet and engage with them at a special public event hosted by taz.
The project is led by journalist Niklas Franzen and Ole Schulz from the taz Panter Foundation.
Green Panter Amazonia is supported by the Federal Foreign Office, the Global Strategic Communications Council (GSCC), Misereor and the Umverteilen Foundation.
