Excited and honored to be a finalist in the Walkley Foundation Mid-Year Media Prizes for 2025 Freelance of the Year. The nominated stories are for a body of work titled “Fighting for the future”: The people at the front line of a changing planet’. They ran in Nature, Yale Environment 360 and The Monthly magazine. … Continue reading
It’s two years since I climbed into a dinghy with Yolarnie Amepou to visit some of the communities in the Kikori delta PNG where she advocates for humans and other creatures grappling with fast rising seas, climate devastation & the fallout of an exploding fishery. Since then, I’ve taken a deep dive into the mysterious … Continue reading
A while back I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days with the awesome Yolarnie Amepou – zoologist, turtle mama and tireless activist for threatened humans and non-humans – as she went about her business in the Kikori Delta, Papua New Guinea. I’ve previously written about what she showed me of how rising … Continue reading
Having witnessed the damaging antics of carbon cowboys and, more recently, self-interested greenwashing industry in REDD+ forest projects in PNG, I was sceptical and intrigued about the notion of “high integrity” carbon. So, I went to the Solomon Islands to see what it looked like on the ground. This issue is one of the most … Continue reading
Very chuffed to be a finalist in the 2023 Melbourne Press Club Quills Best Feature for my story “Climate justice in the Pacific” for The Monthly magazine. Congratulations to fellow finalists (below) in this and all categories. And good luck also to our Unimelb Master of Journalism alum and superstar talent Sasha Gattermayr who is … Continue reading
At the end of particularly gruelling teaching semester, I shot up to Canberra for the Australasian Aid and International Development conference hosted by the Development Policy Centre at ANU. Very grateful for this opportunity to reconnect with some Pacific and development experts and longtime ‘contacts’, and to think about issues in the region. This story for … Continue reading
“It strikes me, after 14 years (on and off) reporting from all over PNG, that climate damage is the most tangible return many grassroots people have ever known on those gazillions of gallons of extracted fossil-fuel wealth.” I spent a couple of weeks last year visiting three villages in PNG dealing with climate impacts – … Continue reading
Belatedly catching up posting some of my recent work. This was the second report I filed for The Guardian during a reporting trip to PNG during the 2022 election. I was excited and gratified to be able to interview both the successful women – the new Central Governor Rufina Peter and MP for Rai Coast … Continue reading
As a serial ‘parachute’ journalist, dropping in & out of places not my own, I’m all too aware of the shortcomings of this model of reporting. Thinking out loud about how to tell truer, deeper stories of climate impacts in the Pacific in this critical moment, I’m grateful for the insights of Katerina Teaiwa and … Continue reading
Feeling honoured, excited (and more than a bit freaked out) at being awarded a public interest journalism grant through the Walkley Foundation and its donors today. Not least because the grant is named for one of my reporting heroes and mentors, the ABC’s legendary Pacific correspondent Sean Dorney. My ambition with this project is to … Continue reading
Notebook & Narrative by Jo Chandler 