Internews' Earth Journalism Network (EJN) is offering Asia-Pacific Story Grants to support the production of in-depth stories on climate and environmental change that provide information that can empower at-risk communities to make better decisions about their options and build their resilience.

BOOSTING CLIMATE RESILIENCE IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC

Our planet’s environmental future depends on Asia and the Pacific, home to 60 percent of the world’s population, rapidly growing economies and rich pockets of biodiversity. Policy decisions made in countries and intergovernmental forums in this region will influence how drastically global climate will change, which communities can increase their resilience to the impacts of climate change, how many species go extinct and what progress toward sustainable development can be achieved.

Communities living in regions where livelihoods are being most affected by climate change face a two-fold problem: lack of capacity to have their perspectives heard and barriers to receiving information on potential drivers of and adaptation to change. Causes range from information that is unintelligible to the public and policy-makers, to a lack of media coverage and lack of access to communications infrastructure that result from a history of marginalisation, censorship, and poverty. It is also inherently difficult to communicate and to understand the complex background to slow motion crises such as climate change. Finally, for many local journalists in the Asia-Pacific region, access to critical information and data needed to support their environmental stories is often made difficult by a lack of funds, time and expertise, ill-equipped research institutions, or reluctance by authorities to provide open data.

In the face of these challenges, EJN's Asia-Pacific project seeks to improve the quantity and quality of environmental coverage in the region by building the capacity of individual reporters, media outlets and journalism networks to report on climate change and natural resource managements issues, to disseminate news and information to vulnerable communities and to help boost the voices of the women and marginalised groups who are most at risk. This work is made possible with the generous funding from Sweden/ the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

STORY THEMES

We welcome all story ideas that focus on climate and environmental change, or natural resource management in the Asia-Pacific region, with a particular interest in the impact of these changes on women, youth and indigenous peoples and their ability to adapt. In view of the common bias among media outlets to report on problems, we encourage stories that report on solutions and the coping strategies of vulnerable communities. Given the technicality that often comes with environmental journalism, we are also interested in stories that collect data and information on the causes and impacts of environmental and climate change, and report on them in a compelling and easy-to-understand fashion.

We encourage applicants to turn global issues into local stories that are relevant to local audiences, or on the other hand, report on local or regional environmental issues in a way that can attract attention at an international level. Finally, we are keen to support stories with the potential of informing policy decisions related to domestic or regional environmental protection, such as regional cooperation on climate change and other transboundary environmental issues. 

STORY FORMATS

EJN expects to award grants averaging $1,500 depending on the proposal and method of coverage, with some flexibility for in-depth stories using innovative and investigative approaches that may be more costly to produce. Applicants should provide a detailed budget with justification for the amount requested.We expect that proposals will largely reflect what equipment the applicant already has access to (including cameras, drones, lighting, tripods, etc.) and will not consider budgets that heavily focus on procuring new supplies.

We also encourage the use of multimedia and different media platforms to present and disseminate the stories. Applicants for long-form and multimedia narratives should include plans and budget for accompanying multimedia elements (i.e. video, photos) and distribution channels in their pitch. In the case that applicants will only pitch stories to media outlets after the stories are completed, they should outline the plan for distributing the reports.

Stories can be done in English or local languages, or both. Applicants who intent to write or produce stories in local languages, the English translation of the product should be provides. Please include the cost for translation in the budget, if necessary.

Please download this budget form to complete your application.  If you are receiving funding from other donors, please make a note of it on your budget form. 

EXPECTED STORY LENGTHS

• Long-form Narrative: 2,500 to 5,000 words

• News Article: 500 to 1,200 words
• Multimedia Package: Video piece around 2-6 minutes in length with possible graphics, photos, text, maps

WHO SHOULD APPLY?

Journalists (online, print, television, radio) and other expert media practitioners with a track record of reporting on climate change, natural resource management and other environmental issues are welcome to apply. We encourage freelancers and staff from all types of media outlets – both large and small – to submit applications. Grantees are free to publish or broadcast their stories in other media as long as Internews and SIDA are also given rights to publish, broadcast and distribute them freely.   

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