My reporting puts people, communities and their experiences first.
I seek out stories about environment or human rights issues, and where they intertwine, and try to put the people and communities most affected by these issues at the heart of the story.
In 2021, I received a grant from the local TOA-GK (Todos los Ojos en la Amazonia) for In-depth Journalism in the Amazon, and in 2018 was a recipient of the Casa Socio-Environmental Fund for environmental reporting.
Some select publications:
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From pristine forest to prison fortress: why Ecuador is sacrificing fragile ecosystems to build jails (The Guardian)
JUNTAS DEL PACIFICO, ECUADOR – Walking along a path his grandfather once used, Donald Cabrera, a villager from Bajada de Chanduy, on the coast of Ecuador, points out different trees and their uses. Talking about the imposing ceibo trees, he praises the fluffy white kapok fibre that falls from their branches, which his ancestors used…
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The problem with people: how more tourists and a growing population are taking their toll on the Galápagos islands (The Guardian)
PUERTO AYORA, ECUADOR – In the humid Galápagos highlands, surrounded by tall scalesia trees, biologist Carolina Proaño has her head to the ground, checking nests for signs of new eggs or recent visits. She has long been trying to save the Galápagos petrel, a critically endangered black and white seabird known for making its nest…
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‘This is something that divides us’: Ecuador’s turbulent transition from oil dependence (The Guardian)
QUITO, ECUADOR – In a small corner of Ecuador’s Yasuní national park is the village of Llanchama. This Indigenous Quichua community is carved out of the dense Amazonian rainforest along the Tiputini River. But for nearly 10 years an entirely different development has been attempting to establish itself on the village’s borders: the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT)…
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Crude Awakening: Why Ecuador voted to stop drilling in the Amazon (Climate One, podcast)
YASUNI, ECUADOR – Was happy to work on this podcast about the Yasuni referendum in Ecuador, where the country voted to stop oil drilling in one area of the national park. I traveled to the Amazon, where locals actually voted to continue oil drilling here to find what was up with that. The situation is…
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‘Just by breathing we are contaminated’: schoolgirls fight to extinguish Ecuador’s gas flares (The Guardian)
LAGO AGRIO, ECUADOR – Fourteen-year-old Leonela Moncayo gets angry when she talks about the gas flares burning near her home. She grew up on the outskirts of Lago Agrio, a city on the edge of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, at the heart of its oil industry, where patches of tropical forest canopy are interspersed with oil…
Kimberley Michelle Brown 