#SEJSpotlight: Karla Mendes, Investigative Reporter, Mongabay; SEJ Board of Directors, DEI Chair; Rainforest Investigations Network Fellow, Pulitzer Center

 

Meet SEJ's first Brazilian and Latin American board member, Karla Mendes! Karla has been working as a correspondent for international outlets since 2015 and she has specialized in covering environmental, land and property rights issues since 2017.

• In December 2023, Karla won 2nd place in the Lincoln Awards with a year-long investigation into land-grabbing from palm oil companies in the Brazilian Amazon. In 2023, Karla was also a winner of the 2023 SEAL Journalism Environmental Award and the Judge J. Elliott Hudson Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of King's College in Halifax, Canada.
• In 2022, her 18-month investigation that revealed how “sustainable” palm oil triggered deforestation and water contamination in Brazil’s Amazon won 2nd place in the SEJ Awards for outstanding investigative reporting and 3rd place in the Fetisov Journalism Awards.
• In 2020, Mendes won first place in the Outstanding Explanatory Reporting category in the SEJ Awards for a project with Max Baring, published by Thomson Reuters Foundation about Maranhão's Guardians of the Forest. The documentary was also honored in the Tulum WE Film Festival and the Colorado Environmental Film Festival and received an honorable mention at the Naples Human Rights Film Festival.

Karla has a master's degree in investigative and data journalism from the University of King's College, Canada, and an MBA in finance from São Paulo's Fundação Instituto de Administração. She is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Karla said, “It's impossible to separate my environmental career from the SEJ: a well-timed reporting grant was a milestone in my shift to environmental reporting. I highly recommend the SEJ to environmental journalists all around the world.” Join us — apply for SEJ membership.

Check out some of Karla's work for Mongabay:

• "End of Impunity for Indigenous Killings in Sight for Brazil’s Guajajara," November 20, 2023.
• "RSPO Suspension of Brazil Palm Oil Exporter Tied to Mongabay Land-Grabbing Report," March 29, 2023.
• "Video: Stolen Quilombola Cemeteries in the Amazon, and the Probe That Revealed It All," December 20, 2022.
• "Major Brazil Palm Oil Exporter Accused of Fraud, Land-Grabbing Over Quilombola Cemeteries," December 15, 2022.
• "Mongabay Probe Key As Brazil Court Rules on Palm Oil Pesticide Contamination," October 7, 2022.
• "The War on Journalists and Environmental Defenders in the Amazon Continues (Commentary)," June 16, 2022.
• "Déjà Vu As Palm Oil Industry Brings Deforestation, Pollution to Amazon," March 12, 2021.
• More.

Find Karla:

Instagram     @bykarlamendes
LinkedIn       /bykarlamendes
X/Twitter      @karlamendes

 

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