Protecting the voices that protect our planet

While attention often focuses on war correspondents or political investigators, another group of journalists faces growing risks—those reporting from the frontlines of the climate crisis. Radio journalists have become lifelines of local climate communication across continents, from flooded deltas to parched farmlands. Their voices translate complex climate data into practical survival information, bridging the gap between global science and local realities. Yet, as they defend the planet and empower communities, they become targets of political interests, criminal networks, and corrupt economic actors. Protecting these journalists is not only about defending press freedom; it is essential for achieving climate justice and sustainable development.

Radio connects policymakers to farmers, scientists to citizens, and global goals to local realities. Their work is a quiet act of resistance against ignorance, misinformation, and inequality.

Community Radio: The Voice of Resilience

In an era of disinformation and climate emergencies, community radio remains one of the most trusted and accessible media forms in the Global South. Its power lies in proximity, both geographic and emotional. When a cyclone approaches a coastal settlement or wildfires spread through rural areas, a local radio presenter often issues the first warnings in the community's language.

In Ghana's Northern Regions, local radio programmes supported by agricultural extension services have helped farmers adopt drought-resistant crops and shift planting times to match rainfall patterns. Radio connects policymakers to farmers, scientists to citizens, and global goals to local realities. Their work is a quiet act of resistance against ignorance, misinformation, and inequality.

Why Climate Reporters Are Under Attack

The question remains: why would a journalist covering climate or agriculture face danger? The answer is that climate reporting has become politicised, exposing how power, profit, and environmental degradation intersect:

1. Community journalists often uncover illegal mining, logging, sand mining, or pollution that powerful interests prefer to keep hidden.

2. Community journalists report on mismanaged climate funds or exploitative land deals, which can make them enemies of officials or business elites.

3. When they amplify the voices of indigenous or rural communities displaced by illegal mining, they are branded "anti-development" or "obstructionist."

In October 2024, the Ghanaian journalist by the name Erastus Asare Donkor, together with a drone pilot and camera technician, was violently assaulted by armed men while reporting on environmental destruction at a mining site in the Ashanti Region. The 2021 murder of Mexican journalist Jacinto Romero Flores, a community radio broadcaster who criticised a hydroelectric project, symbolises this danger, as his death remains unpunished. His story echoes countless others across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where journalists defending the environment are silenced with impunity.

Each time a local station refuses to be silenced, it signals to the world that justice, like the airwaves, cannot be owned or muted. It belongs to everyone.

How Community Radio Can Help End Impunity

While community radio journalists are vulnerable, their collective power can provide them with protection. When properly networked, trained, and supported, community media can serve as a deterrent to violence and a force for justice. Here are concrete ways community radio can contribute to ending attacks on journalists:

1. Building Collective Protection Networks: When journalists operate in isolation, they are easier to silence. Community radio networks, at the national, regional, and district levels, can establish rapid alert systems that immediately broadcast and share threats. Public exposure deters potential attackers, and station solidarity provides moral and practical support. In countries like Kenya and Nepal, federations of community broadcasters already share safety alerts and coordinate responses to threats.

2. Turning Local Listeners into Defenders: Community radio's greatest strength is its relationship with its audience. Listeners trust and often know their local presenters personally. By embedding media literacy and press freedom segments into regular programming, journalists can educate communities about their right to information and the dangers of censorship. When listeners understand that an attack on a journalist is an attack on their safety and development, they become natural defenders.

3. Documenting and Reporting Threats Publicly: Stations can dedicate airtime to documenting attacks and pressures local reporters face. This transforms silence into visibility. Partnering with human rights groups and national media councils ensures that every case is brought to the public's attention. Impunity thrives in secrecy; community radio sheds light on it.

4. Integrating Safety and Legal Training: Media NGOs and international partners can train community journalists in risk assessment, digital security, and basic legal defence. Safety training should be integrated into climate communication programmes. Protecting journalists must be viewed as a component of climate adaptation, as information is essential for effective adaptation to occur.

5. Linking Protection to Climate Finance: Donors and multilateral agencies funding climate adaptation should tie their support to a country's press freedom and journalist safety record. International frameworks, such as the UN Action Plan on the Safety of Journalists, should explicitly include environmental and climate reporters. A nation that fails to protect its media cannot claim to be climate-resilient.

A Shared Struggle: Climate Justice and Press Freedom

Silencing environmental journalists erases the very stories communities need to survive. Conversely, empowering them strengthens democracy, transparency, and resilience. As we commemorate the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, let us expand our understanding of what it means to be a journalist at risk. It is not only those in war zones or capital cities, but also the rural broadcaster warning of rising tides, the woman presenter teaching farmers about composting, and the youth reporter exposing illegal mining. Their microphones carry more than sound; they have hope, accountability, and truth. Protecting them is protecting humanity's collective fight for a liveable planet. Each time a local station refuses to be silenced, it signals to the world that justice, like the airwaves, cannot be owned or muted. It belongs to everyone.

By Dr Enoch Tham-Agyekum