With this project, Sentient Media launches an investigative journalism arm in Brazil, focused on animal agriculture, environmental and climate effects of intensive farming, and welfare and rights of animals. Brazil is both a key player in global livestock production and the main home of the Amazon rainforest. This potential for conflict is exacerbated by the mounting climate crisis and the lack of political will for necessary action. Compelling, high quality reporting is urgently needed.
Brazil is a key player in the global agriculture and its climate impact. It is also home to the world's largest rainforest, and unfortunately, fastest rates of climate-risking deforestation. In the fall of 2019, the fires started by ranchers and loggers in the Amazon deservedly made global headlines -but this is just a small part of the story. Corruption, lack of political will, and rogue profiteering are still risking the environment, lives of millions of animals, and our planet's future.
With innovative in-depth reporting, we want to ensure these issues remains salient, urgent, and on mainstream agendas. Sentient Media Brazil wants to address two areas of neglect in current climate reporting: Brazil's role in the future of the climate, and the general neglect of covering animal agriculture's impact on the climate. We have a globally accomplished and well-connected team of reporters, and are in Brazil advised by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald.
It is impossible to overstate the climate urgency created by the combination of global appetite for meat (especially beef), and the wanton destruction of the natural resources that shield us from a planetary emergency. Media has a crucial part to play, making sure that the public are informed and decision-makers and businesses are held accountable. We predict our reporting to make global headlines in 2020, increasing the pressure to do the right thing for the environment, people, and the animals
