Lee Kwai Han

Lee Kwai Han is a freelance journalist based in Penang, Malaysia. She writes mostly about the environment and sustainability and is a contributing writer to Macaranga Media, an independent news portal that focuses on sustainability and environmental issues in Malaysia. She started in journalism in 2022 with a story on how the climate crisis is putting rice production in Malaysia at risk. Since then, she’s written in-depth stories on topics like wildlife trade and biodiversity loss. In 2024, she co-won the Said Zahari Young Journalist Award for a piece she co-wrote about Malaysia’s rare earths mining project. The story highlighted how the local community wasn’t informed about a pilot mining site near their village, even though it exposed them to potential water pollution, while the country pushed ahead with its economic goals tied to the global energy transition.