DEADLINE: Writing Opportunity With The Oxygen Project

While awareness of ocean pollution has risen to impressive heights, the issue of deep seabed mining remains buried in a sea of governmental and corporate hide and seek. Meanwhile, deep-sea mining corporations, who position themselves as environmentalists, meet with global leaders in closed-door sessions.

Leading the charge is the ISA, which was established by the UN in 1982 “to control activities in the area” of the seabed, ocean floor and subsoil, “particularly with a view to administering the resources of the area.” According to environmentalists, scientists, fishery industries and others, many of the ISA’s member countries and the current leadership are promoting a “weak” treaty for the management of the ocean’s resources. Translation: profit over preservation.

Experts warn, deep seabed mining risks causing even more biodiversity loss and potentially damaging a critical carbon sink.

There are complex choices ahead for people and policymakers at the ISA and beyond. This reporting project will try to strengthen accurate and useful understandings of these fragile and mostly unknown underwater ecosystems, considering both fruitful and harmful connections between conservation and development, and contributing to better protection of our oceans.

Among other things, we’re interested in:

• Protecting biodiversity in the deep sea
• Understanding the companies involved in deep seabed mining and the new industry they’re creating
• Exploring the total value to humanity that comes from protecting the deep sea
• Clearly identifying the many influential international organizations involved in the understanding of this new industry
• Learning how deep seabed mining impacts climate change

We welcome proposals from experienced journalists and opinion writers for conventional news stories, in-depth features, investigative reports, profiles, case studies. We are also open to opinion pieces on the subject.

Each story will be between 800 and 2,000 words in length and will include quotes from at least 2 or 3 original interviews. Authors will be expected to provide 3-5 publishable photos to accompany their articles, along with captions and photo credits.

Completed stories will be published in English on TheOxygenProject.com under an open Creative Commons license that allows for sharing, re-publication, and re-posting. They could potentially be translated into another language and published by The Oxygen Project.

The Oxygen Project will negotiate all fees and contracts on a per-story basis. We also offer a small bonus of $25 to journalists who proactively get their stories re-published in major third-party print media outlets and on websites that draw more than 100,000 unique visitors per month.

Please submit your pitch to oxygenshort@gmail.com along with your journalism resume and three clips. Pitches should clearly explain the story you would like to tell, a bit of background, and identify possible sources. Applications welcome in English or Spanish.

Pitches will be considered on a rolling basis until December 01 2020, or whenever our budget is disbursed. Stories must be published by November 15, 2020.