Editor’s note: this article is the third part of The Fix’s series of guides on environmental journalism. You can find previous instalments at the link.

This last part of The Fix’s environmental journalism guide aims to create a great starting point, mapping tools, guides, and resources for environmental journalism. 

Starting from Part I and Part II of The Fix’s guide, you should already have the right approach to these kinds of tools, so we can now see some of them. Just remember that to improve journalistic skills, it’s essential to explore and use the instruments, not only to have theoretical knowledge. Moreover, developers can change or stop updating these tools for unpredictable reasons. So, you always have to check everything – terms and conditions of the service included – to use them. 

You must always ensure that these tools and their providers are transparent, verifiable, and accountable.

Eventually, also remember that more than tools are needed. You will likely need to combine them with other approaches, on-the-ground verification, and investigation, even if the digital landscape is part of the “ground” for contemporary journalists. 

The Global Investigative Journalism Network has produced guides on methane emissions (extended version and short version), sea level rise, and Climate Crisis: Ideas for Investigative Journalists that you can add to the list of free courses for starting we presented in Part I.

Public Media Alliance published another list of tools and resources: it’s regularly updated and good to check sometimes. 

One of the most comprehensive guides to tools for environmental journalism is, without a doubt, this public sheet created by Bellingcat. You may need to ask for access – wich should be granted without any problem – and you will find a lot of tools for other needs, too.

Dozens of tools and resources

We will talk about some tools, not just to explain how they work – it would be enough to access the handbooks of each instrument – but also to analyse their implications.

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service

Let’s start with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). It’s a European project providing consistent and quality-controlled worldwide information on air pollution and health, solar energy, greenhouse gases, and climate forcing. You can access data, use cases, and a specific press page.

With a combination of maps and downloadable data you should already manage if you practise with Global Forest Watch, Copernicus provides you with a solid background for different stories.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) implements CAMS on behalf of the European Commission. Thirty-five states support ECMWF, which is an independent intergovernmental organisation. As you can see, in dealing with these tools, you must understand the languages, keywords, and technical terms. But there’s more. Copernicus is also an excellent exercise for understanding that global monitoring tools, based on sensor or satellite networks, are also the expression of attempts at global, intergovernmental governance.

From an overall perspective, this makes sense: it’s only possible to appropriately act to solve the climate crisis with a global vision combined with local actions.

But it is essential to remember and understand any conflicts of interest. It is crucial to also keep in mind that there are people globally using the existence of these organisations and the funding they receive – from private foundations, governments, and institutions – to fuel conspiracy theories. Even the UN Agenda 2030 is considered a population control tool in some circles.

Journalists can have a constructive approach by combining the use of tools and data to work to hold private companies and public institutions accountable for their actions. Putting this combination into practice means also keeping in mind that environmental journalism is not just made up of data but also of territories, people, and living beings.

Environmental Justice Atlas

For these reasons, the Environmental Justice Atlas is a handy tool – even if it is not based on technical sensors and measurements. “Across the world,” you can read in EJAtlas official presentation, “communities are struggling to defend their land, air, water, forests and their livelihoods from damaging projects and extractive activities with heavy environmental and social impacts: mining, dams, tree plantations, fracking, gas flaring, incinerators, etc.” 

“The EJ Atlas,” continues the presentation, “collects these stories of communities struggling for environmental justice from around the world. It aims to make these mobilizations more visible, highlight claims and testimonies, and to make the case for true corporate and state accountability for the injustices inflicted through their activities.”

You can browse the over 3800 cases reported and find how different they are and how many underreported stories you can uncover. 

A detail from the “NO TAV” section on the EJAtlas

In Italy, for example, you can find the story of the NO TAV movement, often framed by journalists as a bunch of ignorant mountaineers suffering from NIMBY syndrome (not in my backyard), without any data to support their protest. Digging into the accurate timeline of events collected by the EJAtlas, this is not the case. All the predictions made supporting the extensive railway infrastructure to be excavated in the mountain have turned out to be wrong. As if that weren’t enough, the Turin-Paris high-speed train exists and runs on the old railway – just as the No Tavs asked from the beginning. This story is a classic example of human life’s political, strategic, and environmental complexity and the stories journalists must tell. And it reminds us that we must never oversimplify.

EJAtlas is an extraordinary collection to immerse yourself in: it humanises the environmental issue and, combined with more technical tools, is a resource for environmental journalists worldwide.

Protected Areas is the most up-to-date and complete data source on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures. It’s updated monthly with submissions from governments, non-governmental organisations, landowners, and communities.

Satellite-Detected Natural Gas Flaring and Global Gas Flaring Data are two tools to monitor flaring. Gas flaring is the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction. “The practice,” explains the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership, “has persisted from the beginning of oil production over 160 years ago and takes place due to a range of issues, from market and economic constraints to a lack of appropriate regulation and political will.”

We are talking about a “monumental waste of a valuable natural resource that should either be used for productive purposes, such as generating power, or conserved.” To evaluate data, consider that 143 billion of natural gas is flared – and so, wasted – yearly. That’s an amount that “could power the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.”

Global Fishing Watch is an impressive open-access online tool for visualising and analysing vessel-based human activity at sea. The map allows you to monitor global fishing activity from 2012 to the present for more than 65,000 commercial fishing vessels. GFW uses the Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. AIS is an automatic tracking system that uses transceivers on ships to avoid collisions, search and rescue, and guarantee safer navigation. 

Global Fish Watch can detect “apparent fishing effort” based on vessel speed and direction changes. It could be used, for example, to detect illegal fishing techniques.

Several tools provide helpful information to monitor the illegal smuggling of animals: Global Environmental Crime Tracker collects detailed and verified information about different types of international environmental crime: smuggling of elephants, pangolins, rhinos, tigers, leopards in their Asian range, snow leopards, clouded leopards, the totoaba fish, and timber, but also the illegal trade in hydrofluorocarbon.

Thanks to this structured list and linked resources, one can build a solid preparation for covering different types of stories related to environmental journalism.

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