Colombia: Reporting Nature Crimes
The role of a journalist to stop Nature Crimes
From October 19 to 21, a 3-day workshop on Reporting Nature Crimes was held in Bogota, Colombia, with the participation of more than 15 experts including lawyers, judges, prosecutors, public relations, communication strategists, and experts to improve understanding of and capacity to explain issues related to wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, illegal mining, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in regional, national and international contexts.
More than 24 journalists, reporters, and producers from different regions of Colombia participated in the theoretical and practical workshop, which ended by creating a network of journalists to which the experts joined, committing themselves to collaborate in their investigations.
Participants learned new media tools to communicate effectively with their audiences through multimedia stories on nature crimes, ethical issues that confront environmental journalists, physical security during coverage and investigations, identification and generation of ideas on nature crimes, as well as the creation of strategies for publication of their stories.