The costly reality of environmental journalism in Africa

On 25 December 2025, soldiers from the Congolese presidential guard arrested Stéphane Shisso, a camera operator for Nyota TV, owned by Moïse Katumbi, a prominent opposition politician in the country, and took him to Kimbembe military camp in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi.

Mr Shisso and his colleague Guelord Shamba had produced a report on land degradation and erosion caused by mining in Kolwezi, a city in Lualaba Province known as a global centre for mining cobalt and copper in the West African country. The video, which aired on Nyota TV and Mbengu TV, included interviews with residents who criticised local authorities for failing to act and highlighted the lack of public infrastructure.

According to reports, Mr Shisso was initially taken to the Kimbembe military camp in Lubumbashi, where he spent several days incommunicado before he was transferred to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on 5 January 2026, and detained in the Ndolo military prison. As of July 2026, Mr Shisso had been detained for over six months without being formally tried before a court or notified of the charges against him.

Fearing that he too would be arrested after witnessing Mr Shisso’s apprehension, Guelord Shamba went into hiding. Colleagues and relatives reportedly lost contact with him from late January. Both journalists had also recently lost their fathers and were unable to attend their funerals because of detention and forced exile.

Weeks earlier, another environmental reporting assignment turned dangerous for journalists—this time in Ghana.

In the Obuasi area of Ghana’s Ashanti Region, illegal gold miners, locally known as galamsey operators, ambushed five journalists and environmental officers. The reporters who were covering an operation to shut down illegal mining facilities fled the scene in a chaotic chase that resulted in a severe road accident. Akwasi Adomako of JoyNews suffered a broken leg requiring surgery, while his colleagues from Luv FM, Adom News, and Citi FM sustained head injuries and chest traumas.

The Ghana incident illustrates an important but often overlooked reality of environmental journalism. Journalists covering environmental issues routinely face hazards associated with difficult terrain, road accidents, disease exposure, harsh weather conditions and industrial sites. Yet these dangers become significantly greater when environmental reporting intersects with illegal economies and powerful political or commercial interests.

That intersection was already evident a year before the Obuasi incident.

In October 2024, four journalists and media workers from Ghana’s Multimedia Group were detained and beaten by security guards working for a mining company while reporting on alleged environmental degradation at a mining site in the Ashanti Region. 

The victims include journalist Erastus Donkor; Majid Alidu, a drone pilot; camera technician Edward Suantah; and driver Edward Arko. They had gone to the site to document the renewed destruction of portions of the newly restored Asenanyo Forest Reserve, leading to the pollution of streams joining the Ankobra River, which was also polluted. 

These incidents are part of a wider pattern of attacks against environmental journalists.

A recent monitoring report by the International Press Institute (IPI) documented 26 separate attacks and threats against environmental journalists in sub-Saharan Africa between October 2025 and March 2026 alone. The cases involved journalists reporting on illegal mining, logging, oil management, land and water management, among other issues. According to the IPI monitoring, state security agencies were the main source of threats in the cases it documented, although private companies, armed groups and local actors were also implicated. 

When compared with the broader realities of the African media landscape, environmental journalism is rapidly emerging as the most dangerous beat for journalists on the continent.

Generally, journalism in Africa is heavily constrained by press freedom violations coupled with other challenges facing the media. According to the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), journalism in more than 90 of the 180 countries assessed worldwide faces severe constraints, classified as having difficult or very serious conditions. Further analysis indicates that 34 of these countries are in Africa, including Nigeria, Niger, Mali, and Chad.

Newsrooms on the continent face a growing challenge of underfunding, digital attacks, a growing spate of restrictive legislation like state cybercrime acts, in addition to the challenge of fast-rising information disorder occasioned by the proliferation of artificial intelligence.

While the situation is generally worrisome for journalists across every beat, environmental journalists arguably face a distinctly wider and more severe attack. They operate at the volatile intersection of multi-billion-dollar extractive industries, transnational organised crime, and fragile ecosystems. A reporter investigating illegal mining may simultaneously attract the attention of government officials, security agencies, mining companies, powerful state and non-state actors, criminal networks and communities whose economic survival depends on the activity being investigated. That makes the environmental beat unusually complex.

The Hidden Cost Of Following The Money

Environmental journalism is often described as reporting about forests, rivers, climate change, wildlife and pollution. In Africa, that description is increasingly proving to be much more. Some of the continent’s most consequential environmental stories are really stories about money.

Illegal mining is connected to land ownership, licensing, taxation, political patronage and illicit financial flows. Illegal logging often involves cross-border trafficking networks. Wildlife trafficking connects local poachers to international markets. Oil pollution can raise questions about corporate accountability, regulatory capture and the distribution of public resources.

Environmental journalists, therefore, do not simply investigate environmental damage; they investigate the economic and political system that allows that damage to continue. This is one reason environmental investigations can become dangerous.

The founder and CEO of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Dapo Olurunyomi, said that environmental journalism has moved beyond documenting environmental degradation to investigating illicit financial flows, corruption and governance. He pointed to reporting on mining in the Congo region and the Niger Delta, where the focus is increasingly shifting from the environmental damage itself to the systems and interests that sustain it.

The veteran journalist described the development as a new moment for environmental journalism, requiring greater awareness not only from governments and society, but particularly from journalists, whom he described as carriers of knowledge capable of shaping public policy and community relations.

That is especially important as environmental destruction becomes increasingly intertwined with economic and political interests. In parts of northern Nigeria, including Zamfara, Katsina and Niger, he noted, natural resources have become sources of illicit wealth for conflict actors. Yet coverage can stop at labels such as banditry or terrorism without examining the financial flows generated by resource exploitation.

“The environmental journalist, therefore, must ask questions that go beyond what is happening to the land or water: Who owns the operation? Who benefits? Who issued the licences? Where does the money go? Which officials or institutions are responsible for oversight?”

That shift turns environmental journalism into investigative journalism capable of exposing powerful interests.

Mr Olorunyomi argued that newsrooms must respond with specialised training, resources and dedicated beats. Journalists need to understand mining protocols, licensing regimes, procurement, financial flows and the governance systems behind environmental exploitation.

He noted that organisations such as Reporters Without Borders and the International Press Institute have begun work in this area, but said much more remains to be done.

The need for that specialised capacity becomes clearer when journalists leave the newsroom and enter the environments where these stories unfold.

South African investigative environmental journalist Fiona Macleod, founder and editor of the Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism Centre, noted in an interview with Dialogue Earth that the transition of Environmental Journalism from a “nice to have” beat to an essential one has consequences for journalists. “The more important environmental stories become to national economies and public policy, the more likely they are to collide with powerful interests,” she added.

Reporting Beyond The Newsroom

The physical demands of environmental reporting also make the beat particularly difficult. Investigative stories frequently require journalists to leave major cities and travel to remote forests, mining communities, oil-producing areas, wetlands, border regions and conflict-affected territories.

Across the region, a journalist investigating illegal mining may have to enter forest reserves and mining communities where security arrangements are weak or sometimes nonexistent. The further journalists move from the newsroom, the less immediate institutional protection they may have. This is especially significant for freelancers and small local newsrooms. A reporter working independently may have little to no access to security officials, lawyers, insurance cover, an emergency evacuation plan or an employer willing to intervene if the assignment goes wrong.

In August 2023, Nigerian investigative journalist Damilola Ayeni, then an editor with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), travelled to northern Benin as part of a cross-border investigation into environmental conservation around the Pendjari National Park. While photographing the park for the investigation, Beninese police arrested him and accused him of belonging to a jihadist terrorist group. 

Mr Ayeni was held incommunicado for nine days, during which neither his colleagues nor his family knew his whereabouts. According to FIJ, a man identifying himself as the police commissioner in Parakou demanded 800,000 CFA francs (about $1,315) in exchange for his release. He was eventually released without charge following sustained diplomatic engagement by the Nigerian Embassy in Benin.

Mr Ayeni’s experience highlights an often-overlooked dimension of environmental journalism in Africa, where reporters investigating conservation, biodiversity and protected areas increasingly operate in territories where environmental governance overlaps with counterterrorism operations, border security and militarised policing. In such contexts, journalists are exposed not only to the dangers posed by criminal networks or private interests but also to the risk of being viewed through a national security lens.

The result is that ordinary investigative journalism work can be misconstrued as espionage or terrorism activity, placing environmental journalists at risk of arbitrary detention, prolonged interrogation and criminal prosecution.

The risks are, therefore, not limited to what happens when a journalist publishes a story. In many cases, the danger begins at the very onset of the story when the journalist decides to travel into the territory where the story is unfolding; and once environmental reporting enters these spaces, the consequences can extend far beyond the journalist’s immediate physical safety.

The scale of the threat

A 2024 UNESCO study found that at least 749 journalists and news organisations reporting on environmental issues were targeted between 2009 and 2023 through murder, physical violence, detention and arrest, online harassment or legal attacks.

UNESCO’s survey of more than 900 environmental journalists from 129 countries found that 70 per cent had experienced attacks, threats or pressure linked to their work. Among those affected, two in five subsequently experienced physical violence. The organisation also recorded at least 44 environmental journalists killed over the previous 15 years, with only five of those cases having resulted in convictions, thereby leaving an impunity rate of almost 90 per cent.

The UNESCO data comes from a survey administered on a select set of environmental journalists globally and does not mean that 70 per cent of all environmental journalists worldwide have been physically attacked. Similarly, the 749 figure represents documented cases involving journalists and news outlets, rather than a census of every attack that occurred.

Despite this nuance, however, the findings show that the threats against environmental journalists are not limited to physical violence or harassment. Journalists covering the environmental beat face online harassment, SLAPPs, intimidation, detention, censorship and pressure from employers and authorities.

UNESCO’s research also found that almost half of the environmental journalists surveyed had experienced self-censorship due to fear of retaliation or conflicts of interest, while one-third reported having been censored by their own editorial organisations. When journalists begin to avoid stories because they fear retaliation, the consequences are that communities lose access to critical information about pollution, land degradation, illegal extraction and other activities that directly affect their lives. And in many African communities, the problem is further compounded by the disconnect between environmental journalism and public understanding.

The challenge of widespread ignorance

The threats faced by environmental journalists in the region are further worsened by the knowledge gap between the problems journalists seek to bring to light and the people affected by them. When there’s such a disconnect, environmental journalists are often left in the vulnerable position of being isolated from both the communities they seek to amplify and the sources of support they need.

In an interview with the CJID, Mr Ayeni noted that ignorance is one of the biggest challenges facing environmental journalism in Africa.

“Many either don’t know the importance of environmental conservation or, in the face of poverty, simply don’t care. So, your mission, no matter how well stated, cannot save you if you become their victim,” he said.

State complicity and abuse of cybercrime laws

The risks become even more complicated when environmental reporting collides with restrictive laws. Across Africa, governments rely on laws relating to cybersecurity, national security, defamation, public order, amongst others to prosecute journalists. Vague provisions are often used to criminalise legitimate journalism, particularly reporting that exposes corruption or public-sector inadequacies.

The 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index identified the weaponisation of national-security and cybersecurity laws as a significant regional trend. RSF reported that 24 of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries were classified as having “difficult” press freedom conditions, while five were classified as very serious.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, ranked 130th globally, with RSF noting the severe security pressures confronting journalists, particularly in the country’s conflict-affected eastern regions.

The way forward

Environmental journalist and investigator Gustavo Faleiros has similarly emphasised the importance of detailed preparation before entering high-risk environments. Discussing investigative reporting in remote territories, Mr Faleiros stressed the need for journalists to develop a detailed plan, conduct prior research, and identify reliable local contacts before travelling.

Mr Ayeni also noted the importance of planning ahead of an environmental investigation.

“My 2023 experience opened my eyes to the risks of such work, and today, I plan better and get more people involved. Many times, an environmental story takes you to the remotest, most dangerous parts of the country,” he said.

Mr Ayeni further noted that coordinating with a trusted team is as important as other safety measures.

“Two months ago, for instance, I was in a Kogi State LGA almost completely forgotten by civilisation and the government. But I kept updating a few trusted people with information about my movement. If they didn’t hear from me within a stipulated time, they knew to escalate it to the appropriate quarters.”

The risks facing environmental journalists require more than generic safety advice. Newsrooms, civil society groups and media freedom organisations must rethink how reporters are trained, supported and protected.

For Mr Olorunyomi, the intervention starts with specialised training.

“The usual security training, which is almost never really available, should be complemented by training that helps journalists understand mining protocols, licensing regimes, cadastral systems, procurement and the financial flows behind natural-resource exploitation”, he said.

He also argued that environmental crimes increasingly require journalists to work across borders. Because financial flows and resource-related crimes often operate through networks, newsrooms should build regional partnerships and develop shared safety protocols.

For reporters themselves, preparation must begin before an assignment. Mr Ayeni recommends understanding who controls the territory, who benefits from the activity being investigated, which agencies are involved and what to do if communication is lost. On a recent assignment in Kogi State, he kept trusted contacts regularly updated on his movements so they could escalate the situation if they stopped hearing from him.

He, however, noted that individual caution cannot replace institutional support, noting that Newsrooms should provide security and first-aid training, emergency communication systems, legal support and evacuation plans, particularly for freelancers and reporters working in remote or high-risk areas.

Mr Olorunyomi also urged civil society organisations to make greater use of regional mechanisms, including the African Commission’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“Civil societies must be able to trigger attention very quickly,” he said, adding that strategic litigation and regional human-rights mechanisms can provide an additional layer of protection when journalists are attacked or detained.