- Mongabay Latam has won the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s Global Shining Light Award for its investigation into illegal airstrips in the Amazon rainforest.
- Working with its partner Earth Genome, Mongabay Latam combined AI, drone footage, and interviews with more than 60 local sources to uncover a network of drug-trafficking airstrips in Peru. The reporting also documented links to violence and assassinations targeting Indigenous leaders and communities.
- The year-long investigation sparked national and international media coverage, caught the attention of lawmakers and authorities, and equipped Indigenous leaders with evidence to advocate for greater protections.
- The award was presented today at the 14th Global Investigative Journalism Conference (GIJC25) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.
Few newsrooms venture far into the darker corners of the Amazon. Fewer still return with evidence detailed enough to shift policy. Mongabay Latam managed both, and the feat has now earned the outlet a Global Shining Light Award in the Large Newsroom category at the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s bi-annual conference (GIJC) in Kuala Lumpur.
The prize honors reporting done under genuine threat. And in this case, the danger was not abstract. The project took shape in regions where reporters think twice before lingering, where a wrong turn can bring you face to face with the emissaries of a drug economy that has seeped into Indigenous territories. Mongabay Latam’s team spent a full year mapping a network of clandestine airstrips cut into remote forests in Peru, areas where organized crime has expanded its reach and where Indigenous leaders have been killed for resisting it. Fifteen such leaders have been murdered in recent years; dozens more live under threat.
What the journalists uncovered was bigger than local rumor. After a long phase of information requests, travel, and interviews with more than 60 sources, they identified 67 illegal runways in three regions: Ucayali, Huánuco, and Pasco. Thirty of the strips lie inside Indigenous territories. One cluster in Atalaya, a province now defined as much by fear as by forest, forms a rough ring around seven communities. As the project noted, these territories are not simply infiltrated but encircled.
The method was as striking as the findings. Reporters worked with Earth Genome, a nonprofit that develops analytical tools for environmental monitoring. Using an AI-driven search system, they scanned satellite images for deforestation patterns that resembled those at known narco sites. The technology flagged likely candidates, which were then checked manually through additional imagery, travel, and open-source sleuthing. Drone footage filled gaps where the forest canopy hid telltale clearings. Every airstrip was catalogued with its location, condition, proximity to rivers and roads, and any overlap with protected areas.
The resulting database was difficult for authorities to ignore. The investigation drew national and international coverage and forced uncomfortable conversations in Lima. It also gave Indigenous leaders something they rarely have: independent evidence that supports their claims of invasion and intimidation. In regions where political attention drifts quickly, that kind of documentation can shift the balance, if only slightly, toward those who have the most to lose.
Los vuelos de la muerte: líderes indígenas asesinados en un territorio invadido por 67 narcopistas
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