CFAs: Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowship Program

Deadline Date: August 10, 2024

 Donor Name: Mongabay

 Grant Size: $1000 to $10,000

The Mongabay is inviting submissions for the Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowship to build the capacity of young and aspiring environmental journalists to cover biodiversity hotspots.

With the effects of environmental degradation becoming more apparent, high-quality environmental journalism is more important than ever. But like the journalism sector as a whole, environmental reporting has been affected by shifting business models that have reduced the availability of resources for reporting, shrinking press freedoms in many countries and a lack of early-stage career opportunities. These issues are especially acute in places that bear the brunt of climate change, biodiversity loss, the destruction of nature and threats against Indigenous peoples and local communities.

In response to this situation, Mongabay has established the Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowship Program. The program will provide opportunities for journalists from biodiversity hotspots in tropical countries to report on critical environmental issues, gaining valuable training, experience, and credibility that will help them advance their careers in journalism and communications. Ultimately, they aim for fellows to join the growing global network as regular Mongabay contributors.

The Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowship Program builds on Mongabay’s long-running internship program, which has helped bolster the capacity of environmental journalists in a field where such experience can be hard to acquire. 

The Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowship Program will support up to 18 fellows per year — six at the global English bureau, six at the Spanish-language bureau, Mongabay-Latam, and six at the French-language bureau, Mongabay-Africa. Each cohort will consist of three fellows per bureau.

Logistics

• The fellowship will run twice a year: April 1 through Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 through March 31.
• Each fellow will receive $500 USD a month for the duration of the six-month fellowship, or $3,000 USD in total. During that time, fellows will work directly with the fellowship editor to produce six stories. Fellows will have opportunities to collaborate with multiple Mongabay editors, including those who specialize in different areas.
• Each fellow is expected to commit to engaging 10 hours a week. Each fellow is expected to produce an average of one story per month over the course of the fellowship to be published on Mongabay’s website.
• Work is remote — Mongabay does not have an office and cannot support work visas.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be from a low- to upper-middle income tropical country, as classified by the World Bank. “High-income” tropical countries, such as Singapore and Australia, are excluded from the fellowship. 
• Applicants must be aspiring, early-career environmental journalists.
• Applicants must be able to work remotely and commit to 10 hours per week.
• There is no education requirement to apply for the program. The fellowship is not linked to any university.
• All application materials must be submitted in the appropriate language (English for the English-language program and Spanish for the Spanish-language program).
• They are currently only accepting fellows for the global English- and Spanish-language bureaus. The ambition is to eventually expand this program into other Mongabay bureaus, including Indonesia, India, Brazil and French-speaking tropical countries, but they don’t currently have a timeline for this expansion.

Desired Experience & Qualifications/Judging Criteria

• Basic understanding of and interest in reporting and writing news stories;
• Demonstrated interest in conservation issues;
• Demonstrated interest in environmental journalism as a career;
• Proven communication skills;
• Capacity to fulfill all of the fellowship requirements and reporting plans.

For more information, visit Mongabay.