A few days ago, I officially finished my internship with Mongabay. My last story was about how an island bursting with endemic wildlife off the coast of Papua New Guinea is being threatened by a one-two sucker-punch of goldmining and logging. I think it’s the most important thing I’ve ever written. But it’s a story I wouldn’t have been able to do six months ago.
In that short time, I have learnt tonnes about environmental journalism, writing and storytelling, thanks to extremely helpful and patient editors. I’ve still got a load to learn. But here are some of those lessons from along the way in case they prove helpful in your own projects.
What’s Mongabay?
If you don’t know then sack off this post and spend a few hours going down the Mongabay rabbit-hole. Regular readers of this blog know I’m an enormous fan of Mongabay and you will find links to their website spattered across my site.
How to make conservation writing interesting.
- Know your audience. Make the effort to make your writing understandable and engaging for them.
- Get into the fun details. Conservation fieldwork and research is jam-packed with fun details, from the knee-deep in swamp moments to the face-to-face with a tiger encounters. Don’t ignore these!
- Think about your ending before you start. Beginnings are easy. But if you don’t end on something punchy and worth remembering, the whole article can feel like a flop.
- Avoid (or be very careful when using) the passive voice. It makes your writing less interesting to read.
- Don’t worry if you don’t really know what the passive voice really is. I didn’t either. But here is a helpful primer.
- Get to the point. Especially if you’re summarising the outcome of a research article, it can be tempting to try and build up to the big juicy finding. Do the opposite. Start with the hook, then dive into the details afterwards.
- Ask for photographs (with captions). If you’re writing about a critically endangered leopard, it’s more interesting for everyone involved if you can get some cool camera trap footage—or even a photo of an extremely rare black morph on a beach!
- Subheadings are your friends. If you’re writing a long story with lots of moving parts, split up your writing. This can help you organise how you want to tell the story and also helps your article flow. But make sure you come up with some punchy headings!
- “Think more Hemingway than Dickens.” This was the advice I got back on my very first Mongabay draft, thanks Jeremy! I have a tendency of making my sentences too long, by, for instance, using too many commas, rather than keeping things crisp, and splitting my writing up into shorter sentences, which are in any case easier to read. See what I did there? Google the Hemingway Converter if you need it…
- Don’t be afraid to take risks. Got a weird metaphor, a memorable opening, or an out-of-the-box way of describing deforestation, man-made climate change or dung beetles? Give it a stab.
- Read, read, read. Seriously, read. Yeah, read.
Getting good quotes.
- Most journalism we read these days about forest loss on Borneo, gold-mining in the Amazon or poaching in the Democratic Republic of Congo is written by people on laptops hundreds of miles away from the action. Quotes from researchers and experts on-the-ground can help bring your story to life and provide some much-needed context.
- Find good sources. Researchers tend to be a good starting point. Also read previous articles similar to your own. Identify the people in those who gave a cracking comment. Then drop them an email.
- Don’t question spam. Ask four to six carefully thought out questions. If they respond, maybe you can then ask a few more.
- Cast your net wide. Don’t limit yourself to the authors of a single paper, or the conservationists at a single organisation you are writing about. Getting somebody else’s angle can be helpful too.
- Don’t be afraid to follow up…but be polite. People are busy and your email might get lost in their inbox. Wait four or five days, and then resend your questions. Don’t be ashamed to let them know if you are working to a deadline, but make sure you’re polite. They’re doing you a favour!
- MOST IMPORTANTLY: Ask about the personal and nitty gritty. Ask about the funny field stories, the painful insect bites and the odd sampling protocols. Ask about the muddy mornings and how it feels to discover a news species of orchid. In short, ask the personal questions that are what makes it awesome and exciting to work in conservation!
Two of the quotes I most enjoyed receiving:
“I always say that the only problem [with sampling dung beetles] is the bait we need to use, and the fact that sometimes I need to knock on stranger’s doors at hotels or rural communities to ask them to donate their poo. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.” READ MORE.
You don’t find orchids. Spend enough time in the forest, and it’s the orchids that find you. Like a human pollinator, you are pulled in by their fragrance and the complex, fragile reproductive systems that they have evolved….Whenever I go in the forest, I just feel this lure towards orchids. It’s magnetic! READ MORE.
Coming up with a good story
If you’re struggling to come with a topic for your next big conservation story, here are a couple of potentially helpful starters.
- Work on something you already know about. Think about your past conservation-related experiences. Is there an obscure world you’ve had a unique window into? Maybe a past volunteering job? Or an issue you stumbled across while travelling–or even right on your doorstep? I’ve spent many, many months of my life crapping in Tupperwares in tropical rainforests to survey dung beetle populations. So I decided to write a story about the crazy world of scientists who crap in Tupperwares in tropical rainforests to survey dung beetle populations . Makes sense, huh?
- Sign up to receive alerts about new scientific papers on websites like Eurakalert and Ecolog. If you can’t access the papers…google Sci Hub.
- Find obscure scientific papers. Maybe ones that fell under the radar and didn’t get much attention from media or the scientific community, but should have. Here’s a great example.
- Write about weird animals. Jeremy Hance, one of the reasons I love Mongabay, has a cool tip for writing unique stories. He often writes about quirky species that few people have heard of, like Solenodons, Sumatran rhinos, or tamaraws . Edgeofexistence.org has lists of oddball creatures in need of a helping hand just waiting for you to get writing about. The downside of the weird animals avenue is that you might be hard pressed to find experts to get quotes and information from. The upside is that you could be the only person writing about that species! Go on, be journalistic trailblazer…
- Do follow up stories. Whatever happened to that rediscovered frog everybody thought was extinct, or that patch of rainforest in the eyes of a mining company?
- Get out there. Go on adventures and expeditions. Get involved in research. Meet interesting people. Discover new stories. Ask difficult questions. Find your niche. Sometimes, the best tales come from doing the legwork and the graft and immersing yourself in a topic, out in the real world. Probably the best example of that is fleshed out in the greatest podcast episode I have ever listened to…(READ MORE).
Can environmental journalism make a difference in saving species and ecosystems?
This is one of the question I asked three long-term Mongabay writers and editors in a Skype Q & A at the end of the internship. The short answer to the question is yes–though it can be hard to determine how big a difference. (I’ve also added a few of my own thoughts on the topic).
- Often in change-making environmental journalism, you function more as domino piece or a conduit in a larger movement. You can help move the needle on extinction: for instance by providing a megaphone for environmental activists. But sectioning out how big a push you gave the needle is challenging.
- It can be hard to know if it was your story, or some other factor, that was key to driving through some change. This is particularly true because governments are hardly going to send you a message congratulating you for your potentially instrumental role in halting some environmentally damaging (but probably very profitable) project.
- You can hold corrupt or lying corporations to account and break stories about their actions–something done brilliantly by institutions like Mongabay and Earthsight . It’s another challenge to make the relevant policy-makers listen and take action. (Check out Mongbay and the Gecko project’s Indonesia for sale series for inspiration…)
- You can champion socially and environmentally important causes, like reduced meat consumption or environmental activism. The role of journalism in helping grow Extinction Rebellion and the climate change strike movements is a prime example.
- You can come to be seen as an expert on a particular topic or amass a dedicated following, potentially leading to further opportunities to make a difference.
- You can help shape the public conversation and shine a spotlight onto important issues or creative solutions.
- The right story seen by the right people really can make a difference.
Resources:
- What’s the most important environmental problem to focus on?
- 17 people who have made a difference in preventing species extinctions.
The curious case of Woodlark island
My last article for Mongabay is about how a Malaysian-owned company, Kulawood Limited, are set to clear-cut forty percent of a megadiverse forested island off Papua New Guinea. It’s not a hopeful story. The logging, if it happens, will destroy the home of dozens of species found nowhere else on earth. These range from endemic snakes, frogs and snails to a native marsupial called the Woodlark cuscus.
Some species found only on Woodlark (Photos from Fred Kraus).
But Woodlark has been in trouble before. In 2007 a shady biofuel company threatened to clear 70% of the island to make way for an enormous oil palm plantation.
Then something amazing happened.
Islanders protested the project. Scientists conveyed their fear. Mongabay picked up the story. Things snowballed. A worldwide letter-sending campaign started to stop the project. The momentum peaked and the government of Papua New Guinea bowed to the pressure. The plantation was blocked and a rainforest island was saved.
Environmental journalism truly can make a difference.
Want to write for Mongabay?
I would definitely recommend you check out internship opportunities here. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.
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