Alexa Vélez: Something I realized about this format is that you can tell the story behind the story and connect with the audience through a lot of things that happen, as Maria Isabel said, that people don’t know. I remember a specific one that I told in the play, and it was the encounter with a police officer, Major Cueva. So in different parts of the process I was asking the government for information about the airstrips. I asked them where they are located, if they have found some of them, if they have the coordinates, if they had made operations in the past to destroy the airstrips. And I was insistent with the different letters I sent to the authorities. And every time I sent that letter, Major Cueva called me on my cell phone. He was at my doorstep. “I’m at the doorstep of your house. I come to deliver information.” The first time, I remember that was really scary.

Mike: Welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. I’m your host, Mike DiGirolamo, bringing you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists working on the front lines of conservation, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet, and holding people in power to account. This podcast is edited on Gadigal Land today. On the newscast, we speak with Maria Isabel Torres, the director of Mongabay Latam, Mongabay’s Latin America-based bureau, and Alexa Vélez, its managing editor. They join me today to talk about their recent, multi-year, award-winning investigation, Los Vuelos de la Muerte, The Flights of Death. This investigation used a combination of artificial intelligence, ground-truthing, and relationship-building with local and Indigenous leaders to verify the existence of 67 clandestine airstrips in the Peruvian Amazon, which are used for drug trafficking. Fifteen Indigenous leaders were killed since 2020 as these narco airstrips cut into their land. Most of these airstrips are located in and around Indigenous communities and forest reserves. The result of the investigation sparked wide media attention, shining a light on the lack of government action to protect these communities. The story was produced in collaboration with the California-based Earth Genome, also supported by the Pulitzer Center, conducted in partnership with the Consortium to Support Independent Journalism in the region, CAPIR. While the written story was well received internationally, Torres and Vélez decided to adapt the investigation into an interactive piece of live theater. With the help of the media outlet Ruta Das Conto, they explained to me how this live theater format was able to tell the story behind the story, making an emotional connection with the audience, describing the life-and-death stakes and the intimidation and risks faced by Indigenous leaders and the reporters. On a personal note, I find Mongabay Latam’s theatrical rendition of this investigation cuts straight to the heart of why storytelling is so important. It shows an inspiring example of journalism and dramatization melding together. Alexa and Maria Isabel, welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. It’s great to have you with us.

Maria Isabel Torres: Hi Mike. Thank you so much for inviting us and for being interested in this play that we launched in 2025.

Alexa: Hi, Mike. Nice to be here. Thanks for this invitation. It’s great to be here to talk about the investigation.

Mike: Yeah. It’s great to have you both with us. So we’re going to start by talking about that investigation. It’s titled Los Vuelos de la Muerte, or The Flights of Death, and this won one of the most prestigious investigative journalism awards, which is called the Global Shining Light Award, which is pretty significant, so congratulations. But in brief, can you describe for our audience what your investigation was about and what it found?

Maria Isabel: Yeah, I would love to give some context regarding the investigation, and it is especially important to me because the investigation is about my country. I’m a journalist based in Lima, Peru, and as you probably know, Peru is the second-largest producer of coca leaves in the world, and coca leaves are the main ingredient to make cocaine, and the largest producer is Colombia. So this has always existed here in my country, but something happened during the pandemic that changed. In a specific region of the Peruvian Amazon, 15 regional leaders who opposed the expansion of drug trafficking into their territories were killed in two years. And as I said, this has always existed, but this was very unusual for our country. So these Indigenous leaders told us that this advance of drug trafficking was because of the state—

Alexa: —doing nothing,

Maria Isabel: —and public opinion paid no attention. So we also, as journalists, must confess, we didn’t have a clear picture of what was happening. So we decided to make a first investigation to know the extent of how these environmental crimes were affecting Indigenous communities. We geo-referenced 2,000 Indigenous communities and overlaid layers of geographic information, including illegal mining, deforestation, illegal coca crops. What did we find? Of the 2,000 communities, 1,247 were affected by at least one environmental crime, if not two or three environmental crimes. What does it mean that 60% of those Indigenous communities were surrounded by crime or had crime inside their territories? That was a really shocking number for us. We know what’s happening in the territory, but we weren’t aware of the extent of what’s happening on the territory. So our next goal was to know more about what our sources were telling us, that there were airstrips for drug trafficking in Indigenous territories. So we partnered with an organization specializing in satellite analysis to investigate further. And they developed a search tool that uses AI to detect changes in the territory. For example, the appearance of airstrips in the rainforest means there was deforestation, and AI can detect that change in the territory. So after cross-checking, corroborating hundreds of data points and information, we discovered—and that’s the main finding of the investigation—we discovered 67 clandestine airstrips linked to drug trafficking in this region, in these three regions in the Amazon. And the worst part is that 56 of these are located within, or very close to, Indigenous territories. I can tell you some cases we found: two Indigenous communities living with 15 drug trafficking airstrips in and around their territory. Wow. So you can imagine what that means. And I remember especially the fact that one of our fact-checkers received a call during the night from one of those Indigenous leaders living in those communities, saying that they were witnessing how the narcos were loading a plane with cocaine, with his own eyes. So they were asking if we could call the authorities, if we could do something. And we told him, please wait. We are going to make our effort to put this into stories and not put your life in danger. So this was a process that took a lot of years in the making, and that helped us as journalists to see what was happening in our territories and in our country.

Mike: Before we go further, can you explain a little bit more how the AI analyzed the satellite imagery and how it helped identify the airstrips?

Alexa: Yes. I want to start by sharing with everybody the first time I saw illegal airstrips in the Amazon of Peru. It was 2018. We detected an airstrip within a protected area in Peru. The name is Bahuaja-Sonene National Park, and it’s located between the regions of Madre de Dios and Puno. So at that time we were investigating how illegal coca crops were expanding inside the protected area, which was poorly monitored by the Peruvian government. And that was the first time we saw a couple of airstrips inside a protected area. So we thought at that moment, okay, this is something we should start investigating. And in fact, when journalistic teams went into the field, they brought back information revealing that it was a problem in those areas, not just in that area but in other areas and Indigenous communities also. But we had, at that moment, a very obvious obstacle: it would take us forever to find them if we were to search the territory manually on satellite images looking for the airstrips. So in 2022, our colleagues from Armando.info, which is a media outlet from Venezuela, published a story using artificial intelligence, and they developed this search tool to find illegal mining sites for illegal gold in the state of Bolívar in Venezuela, which is a place that has a lot of problems around that issue. And they also found airstrips because they noticed that the mafias were using the airstrips to take the gold out of those places. So when we saw that, we realized, okay, that’s what we need, we need to use that. So we got in touch with the NGO Earth Genome, based in California, to ask them if they could help us develop a search tool to look for airstrips for drug trafficking in the Amazon of Peru. What made that process really important was the help from the Pulitzer Center, which was a great help, supporting us in gaining access to the tool, but also other projects that helped us strengthen our investigations unit. So the geographer from Earth Genome told us, okay, if you want the tool, you need to give me some examples, at least 10 examples of illegal airstrips. We started digging, talking with a lot of sources from the police, prosecutors, environmental organizations, and sources in the territory, and we managed to gather around 20 samples. So the geographer reviewed that information, took the 10 most powerful ones, and created the tool. So after two weeks, the tool began to find possible airstrips in the forest. The next stage was verification, which was a really tough process, as Maria Isabel says. That took us a lot of time. We verified every airstrip that we found, but on the other hand, we also wanted to know: where are these airstrips? So we started using other kinds of geographic tools, like GIS, to find out if the airstrips are in Indigenous communities, protected areas, or forest concessions, and whether there are illegal coca crops surrounding the airstrips, that kind of stuff. So that is how the process worked for us for a long time.

Mike: Hello listeners, and thank you for tuning in. Today’s conversation focuses on Los Vuelos de la Muerte, The Flights of Death. If you want to read this investigation, I’ve posted a link in the show notes, and as I always do, I encourage you to leave a review of this podcast on the platform you’re tuning in on. Doing this helps elevate the profile of the show. Thanks very much. And back to the conversation with Maria Isabel and Alexa. And so we’re actually—I want to talk a bit about that verification because obviously, as you mentioned, it took quite a bit of time. And Maria Isabel, you already started to go into this a little bit, but can you describe the verification of these airstrips, using on-the-ground reporting and building relationships with local Indigenous leaders? It sounds like that was quite an extensive process and there must have been some challenges there. So can you talk about that experience and what was the most challenging part about it?

Maria Isabel: Yeah, for sure. And also, this is a very important question because it is related to the use of AI in journalism. I think that’s something that is very present in the conversation these days. So for us, it’s very important that when you use AI as an investigative reporter, that doesn’t mean letting the machine do our work. And I’ve been reading about this and I like this phrase: “keep the human in the loop.” It really shows how the process works with this set of tools in these days. So, as I explained, the tool needed our input to recognize what an airstrip in the middle of the rainforest looks like. At first, the AI search tool thought that a river could be an illegal airstrip. So they needed our input to train it to recognize what we want in the rainforest. Once the AI search tool understood that, it began to give us results. I think Alexa can correct me: it gave us more than 100 things that looked like an airstrip. So we had to go through everything. First: is it an airstrip, or a road, or a river? We had to be sure that it was an airstrip. Second—and that was an analysis, one by one—second: is the airstrip illegal? So we geo-referenced all the airstrips and requested official information to determine if they were illegal or not. Second and third: if it is illegal, is it being used for drug trafficking? So there was a lot of work to be done by the reporters, by the fact-checkers. And I remember Anya telling me that she had set up a team to check the use of the airstrips, and that she believed our two reporters could check 10 airstrips in a week. And after one week, how many airstrips did they check, Alexa?

Alexa: Just one, each one of them. One. I was going crazy at that moment.

Maria Isabel: Yeah. After one week we had checked two, and we were spending a lot of time fact-checking, because we had more than 100 to check. So, wow, that was a lot of work. And the other part, for sure, is that we have to remember this was happening in remote territories where communication was extremely difficult. In some cases there was no internet connection or no telephone. And another big thing: local people were afraid to talk to anyone who was a stranger, because they had been threatened with death. This is not—yeah—so the most important thing, as you mentioned, was to build a strong relationship with our sources, understand their point of view, their fears, for sure. Asking for permission, always, to talk to the communities. Acknowledge how Indigenous people organize themselves: they have a leader, they have a local organization, they have regional organizations, they have national organizations. So we tried to be very respectful of how they organize. And I think we did it, and I think that’s why the process went right, because we were able to build that relationship. And perhaps Alexa can tell more about that when we talk about the risks. That was very important to prevent risk. Yeah. I think we can be—especially me—very proud of how we handled that process.

Mike: Yeah, it sounds like that was an incredibly difficult process. And on that note, I mean the risks that you’ve mentioned for locals were quite great because they had been threatened with death. But also there are risks here, very real risks, for reporters that are in territories where drug trafficking emissaries are operating. And so how did you navigate those risks? How did you ensure the safety of your team?

Alexa: Well, as you said, Mike, it was a very challenging assignment in terms of security, and it took us around two or three months to prepare for the production on the ground to ensure the safe entry of the journalistic team. Three months means that’s a lot for a production of a story. So we needed to know which routes were the safest ones, make contact with trusted sources on the ground, because you can’t trust any person you talk to. So that took us a lot of time. We had people we trust who could guide the reporters on the ground, and then we built a network of contacts in the field so we could locate the reporters if communication was lost. We also geo-referenced the whole team, tracked them every day using an app, and they had to check in, for example, three times a day—morning, afternoon, at night—every day. So we were like three people waiting every day for each one of the calls. That was stressful at the time, but fortunately, as you know, Mongabay has a series of safety protocols for dealing with risky situations, so that was really helpful. And on the other hand, we also made a decision to protect the names of the reporters in the publication in order not to expose them, because this was an extremely sensitive issue. Also equally important, as you said, was considering the safety of the sources in the field. For example, protecting the names of the communities visited—you can see they are not mentioned in the text and their names do not appear on the maps. Protecting the names of the Indigenous leaders and local sources interviewed, and also providing support before, during, and after publication to ensure that they were not in danger.

Mike: Yeah. And that is really mind-blowing to hear how much pre-planning this took—months, like three months—just to assess all the risks. I think it can be surprising for people who are not in the world of journalism to hear how much evaluation has to go into just approaching a story. And I have to commend you—you’ve obviously earned every award that you’ve gotten for this. It’s just very inspiring work. So I just wanted to emphasize that. I want to talk now: the findings in this investigation have really highlighted the increasing overlap between drug trafficking and Indigenous territories, as you’ve all explained. And government officials and even other media outlets have taken a pretty strong interest in this investigation and the findings from it. So can you describe the response that you got from this investigation, both from other media and also from government officials? What were some of the most significant impacts that came out of the story?

Maria Isabel: It was a story that for sure attracted the attention of the authorities in Peru, and Alexa will tell more about that, but it also attracted the attention of the media not only in Peru but across Latin America. And I think that was because of the methodology. We received many messages and comments from colleagues asking us for more information on how to use AI in investigations, or how to overlay these layers of information using satellites. Because, as we all know, it’s very difficult to investigate in the rainforest. It’s a large territory, difficult to access. We know a lot is happening in there, and it’s difficult to investigate. So these types of tools are very important. And I always mention this—and Alexa already did—we learned about this AI tool system from our colleagues in Venezuela, from Armando.info. And they were very kind in talking to us and explaining how it worked, putting us in touch with Earth Genome. So we have done the same for our colleagues. We are always trying to do workshops to teach how to use these kinds of tools, because we as journalists don’t have to start from scratch. There’s a lot that other media, other investigative journalists, have done that could be used for new investigations, and it’s important for us to highlight the value of collaboration between colleagues, between news media, and between news media from different countries, because it’s the way we can approach these kinds of crimes, these illegal economies in the rainforest. That is the way. For example, the Global Investigative Journalism Network published a piece about the methodology, and also the Wall Street Journal wrote about it. So I think that was very important. And the second thing that’s important about the methodology is: if journalists can access this methodology and these tools, why can’t the authorities? Or if they do have access—because in many cases they do—why aren’t they doing something? Because now we know where the drug trafficking is, where the illegal threats are, what’s happening, why Indigenous leaders continue being threatened or killed. I think that’s something powerful in terms of investigation.

Alexa: Yeah. I also want to add: the impact was immediate and we were interviewed by a lot of media outlets. The publication was republished 20, 25 times in media from Latin America, seven in Peru. We were in the most important media in the country. For example, one of the most important investigative television programs invited us to explain the methodology and also to explain the legality, and it was important to say in that moment that the government is not doing enough to fight against this problem. On the other hand, the research was able to reach decision makers and experts from civil society. For example, a congresswoman criticized the state’s centralist approach to security issues, because okay, you’re looking at what is happening in the capital, you’re not looking at what is happening in the regions and in Indigenous communities. Also, a former prime minister drew attention to the importance of addressing the problem. Something that made us very happy is that the information was useful for the communities, because the federations used the reporting to go to the Peruvian authorities, to the Peruvian government, and ask them to find a solution. And they used the publications from Mongabay Latam. And also: they asked for protection for people in isolation, Indigenous people in isolation, because we found seven airstrips in and around Indigenous territories for these people. They are so vulnerable. So that information helped them bring evidence to the government and say, this is happening right now, you have to do something. So I think that’s part of what happened.

Mike: Wow. That is incredible. It is really heartening to hear that you provided evidence that allowed the government to see what was happening, and also empowering local communities with the information to help protect themselves. That is really quite inspiring to hear. So thank you for highlighting that. I want to shift and talk about now: you found another way to communicate this investigation, to bring it to more ears and eyes. Originally the story was published in Spanish and also in English, but what you’ve done is you’ve adapted it into an interactive play for an audience. You did this for an audience of a hundred people, and it’s a really fascinating way to communicate journalism. You’ve called it stand-up journalism. So I’d like to unpack with you: how did you take an investigation and turn it into interactive theater?

Maria Isabel: Yeah, that was really the biggest task we did last year. And it’s a format that has been used in recent years by other journalists and other media, because I think we are all trying to find new ways of communicating with audiences. So we call it stand-up journalism, but it’s also often called live journalism. The first time I saw something like stand-up journalism was in Bogotá. La Silla Vacía, a partner of Mongabay Latam, decided to take an investigation about land grabbing in Colombia to the theater. That was two years ago, I believe, and they did it with Casa Andina. I remember I went to the theater and saw the play, and I thought it was incredible because it not only explained the bones of the story—it was a very complicated story because it had to explain laws and how it works, the system of territory in Colombia—but it also explained the details of the story with anecdotes, telling about the journalism process itself. For example, I remember they told that they found a well-known drug trafficker when they were on a plane. They were recording in the field and they heard gunshots and they didn’t know what to do. And it was a little frightening and also, in some way, funny, because the journalism process is like that: it’s a lot of doubts, it’s a lot of luck in some cases. So it was really great to know there can be another way to interact with the audience and let them know there’s an important story they have to embrace. As I’ve said before, we didn’t start from scratch. We asked our partners to help us turn this investigation, which had like six stories and a lot of words, into a one-hour play. Okay, so how do we do that? We started with the script, which was based on interviews with everyone who participated in the investigation, including not only the reporters but the editors, fact-checkers, and the geographer. Then our colleagues from Colombia talked with everyone. We looked for data, but also anecdotes, and also reflection on our work in the field. Then we had a preliminary structure with facts and anecdotes. It seems simple until that moment. The third part involved moving away from our usual process of only informing, to finding ways to interact with the audience and generate emotion. That’s new for all of us. For example, instead of just saying that 15 Indigenous leaders were killed, we gave the audience banners with the photos of each Indigenous leader, asking them to stand up at the beginning of the play, with the full name of the Indigenous leader and the reason why he or she was killed, and usually it was because they were defending the territory. And this is to build momentum, to acknowledge we’re talking about an investigation that involves life and death. That was new to me, thinking about those kinds of tools and that kind of momentum, because as I said, we are accustomed to different things. And they also helped us think about including things like games, how to bring a local source on stage, and also to hear the voice of Indigenous leaders as well. And finally, we had to create a visual and sound part to accompany the script—think about lighting, think about pieces of audio and video that can come into the play. And we were very lucky because we worked with Sebastián Rubio, a very talented Peruvian theater director, who helped us understand how to move on the stage, how to use the lights, et cetera. And finally, perhaps that was the most challenging part: we had to rehearse. We rehearsed a lot because we were afraid of not doing it right. We rehearsed in some place at first, then in the theater, because you have to move on the stage while talking, looking at the people. There was a lot. So I think it was really interesting as a process, and in the end it was great because we could reflect on our process as journalists, how we do this kind of investigation, how we can generate emotion, how we can interact with the audience when we are not behind a screen, when we are with them face to face.

Mike: Yeah. Just hearing you talk about it—chills down my spine. The process of getting the audience to connect with the Indigenous leaders that were killed, and having them read the reason why, I can imagine that plugged people into the story in a way that reading about it on a page probably couldn’t. And I really appreciate that you took the care to do that. Elizabeth Salazar, who I believe is a reporter who worked on the story, said the intention is to place the audience in the theater in the same moment and state of mind I was in when I entered that community. That feeling, which isn’t always experienced by the reader when described in a text, is very powerful in a theater. So that’s something I just wanted to highlight. I want to jump real quick to talking about—because you’ve mentioned anecdotal evidence, and there’s a lot of evidence and anecdotal evidence that happens in stories that you can’t really put down in the publication, but you can tell an audience when they interact with you. What were some of those stories you highlighted in the play that didn’t make it into the investigation?

Alexa: Yeah, I remember one specific story, because something I realized about this format is that you can tell the story behind the story and connect with the audience with a lot of things that happen, as Maria Isabel said, that people don’t know. They just read the investigation, read the text, see the videos, et cetera. So we tried to put some of the stories on the stage. I remember one that I told, and it was the encounter with a police officer, Major Cueva. It’s a story that helps you understand the indifference of the state, the lack of transparency of the authorities in sharing information of public interest, and the fear you can experience when a police officer arrives at your doorstep at any moment to deliver an official communication. So in different parts of the process, I was asking the government for information about the airstrips. I asked where they are located, if they have found some of them, if they have the coordinates, if they had made operations in the past to destroy the airstrips. And I was insistent with the different letters I sent to the authorities. And every time I sent that letter, Major Cueva called me on my cell phone, and he was at my doorstep: “I’m at the doorstep of your house. I come to deliver information.” The first time I remember that was really scary. I said, why is the police at my doorstep giving me this information? Normally they send information by mail, but he went two times. So during the play we tried to recreate that scene with an actor playing Major Cueva. I interacted with him, trying to share with the audience what it feels like in that moment for a journalist: you are investigating, you’re working, and suddenly the police is at your doorstep—and he did it twice.

Mike: Yeah.

Alexa: So that’s an example of a story that is not in the investigation, not published in the text, but we shared that moment with the audience.

Mike: Wow. That must have felt very intimidating to have that happen, Alexa.

Alexa: Yes, definitely. You keep working, and sometimes you don’t realize you’re in a risky moment. But then after, when we start remembering the process, we say, wow, this was really scary. What was the police doing at my house?

Mike: Yeah.

Maria Isabel: And it’s interesting because in the play we presented that and people laughed, because what we wanted to show is how Alexa persisted. First she sent a letter, Major Cueva appeared at the doorstep. Then Alexa wrote another email and then Cueva called. Then Alexa wrote another thing and communicated with the authorities like, I don’t know, five times, six times asking, “Give me the location of the illegal airstrips that you have found.” And always you have Major Cueva—interpreted by our friend, the actor—with a hat, and he says, “I have no information. I have no information.” So it was intimidating, but at the same time it was funny, because of how the state is not efficient, how the state is not transparent. So the feeling of being on stage telling that anecdote—it seems funny, you know.

Mike: Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine that gives the audience a more personified sense of what this looks like—the lack of transparency, the lack of action. So you mentioned that a local Indigenous leader from one of the affected territories actually joined you on stage for the performance. How was that experience?

Alexa: We invited an Indigenous leader on stage because we thought it was really important to have his voice in that space. As you said, we had like 100 people there, and we thought that this Indigenous leader, who represents one of the most threatened populations in the Peruvian Amazon, who has witnessed the murder of several of his Indigenous leaders since the pandemic began, it was important to have him in that space. So we interviewed him for around 20 minutes so he could talk about how they are fighting against the drug traffickers in the territories, because they are fighting with them all the time. The government is not there, the police is not there. And they also have these Indigenous guards to patrol in the territories. This is a mechanism that exists in different places in Latin America and other places in the world. And he was telling what they do to try to resist the threats they have in their territories. One thing that really surprised me at that moment was that he told us that two weeks before, he received a new threat by phone from somebody telling him they were going to murder him. So that was terrible. But something that was really helpful because of this format is that we had a congresswoman in the room. So after the play, the congresswoman went and talked to the Indigenous leader and told him she’s going to help him. So that was an impact in real time, the same day that we had the play. That was really important.

Mike: That—

Maria Isabel: And while that happened, we asked the audience not to take pictures of the Indigenous leader because he was in danger. So we asked them to be like us: we have to protect our sources, we have to listen to them and protect them. Please don’t take any picture because you can put his life in danger. And also, I think that gave that sensation of being part of the story, you know, that you have to be proactive, to protect Indigenous leaders who are really brave to come to the capital and say that they have been threatened to be killed. So yeah, I think that’s something people who attended the play mentioned: it was really emotional and interesting.

Mike: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because it seems like an awful lot of trust to place in the audience, but also giving them a sense of participation. How did the audience respond to this format, on the whole? What was some of the most notable feedback you got?

Maria Isabel: I think Alexa mentioned we had a congresswoman attending the play, and it was important because she also reacted to the play, put something on social media, remembering that this is happening and how the government hasn’t done anything. And I believe what was really important is that during the play we could hear people laughing, we could hear silence when the hard data was presented. We saw people looking into their phones, because one of the activities we organized during the play was to teach them how to use the algorithm in daily life. We asked an actor friend to play the algorithm, like Siri or Alexa, but he was the algorithm, and we showed people how you can train the AI to look for illegal airstrips on your phone. They took out their phones at some moment of the play and looked for the illegal airstrips with the coordinates that we gave them, so people could watch on their cell phones the illegal airstrips. So what I believe is that people not only felt emotion, but also understood the process, and that’s something we wanted to achieve. The play lasted like one hour and 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes, and people were always interested. And when we met with them at the end of the play, they said this was amazing. Even people from NGOs or other organizations who had read the investigation, they didn’t feel the investigation like this when we presented it this way. And I think that’s the main purpose of this format, and for us it was really impressive. And one more thing: for this occasion, we invited Indigenous communicators from the Peruvian Amazon. We had like 30 Indigenous communicators in the room. So I was very nervous because it’s difficult to talk about Indigenous problems with Indigenous communicators in the place. So we tried to be very respectful, and we acknowledged their presence. And it was really great that they told us they found it interesting, and that they would like to see it in the regions, that it could be a format they can use to go to communities and present their findings. So that was super important for me, and I think it was the main goal of trying to do something like that.

Mike: I think it’s really telling that you had people who were already familiar with the investigation, who already read it, come to the performance and say they got something new from it, that it really affected them. So in the time we have left here, I would like to ask you both: because I’m always interested in how storytelling impacts people, and that’s a common theme on this podcast, has this experience altered how you think about journalism in any way, or about how you get news and reporting to people?

Maria Isabel: For sure. I think that all journalists in these times are very worried, trying to find ways to understand our audience and to get their attention. We know there is news avoidance. We know there is fake news. So we are trying to look for different ways. And for me, the most important thing is to acknowledge that there are different types of media consumption. There are people that like to see a video. There are people that like to read. There are people that like to hear a podcast. And we cannot presume that if we write something that is very interesting, people are going to wait for it and read and say, “Oh, Mongabay, that’s a great work.” We have to make our best effort to look for the best ways to reach them. And for me, journalism is a public service. So I think it’s our duty to try to look for those ways, because if we don’t try them, we lose those spaces to people who lie, who have fake news. And they are in all spaces. They don’t mind something like TikTok. Sometimes journalists have prejudice against TikTok, but if we are not on that platform, we leave that space for fake news. So we have to try to understand rules, to experiment. And I feel this was a very interesting experience for Mongabay at that time as a news outlet, but also for me as a journalist who has been doing journalism for, I don’t know, 15 years. I think we have to try new things because we need to reach more.

Alexa: Yes. I just want to add that something that was very important for me about the format, beyond what Maribel said, is the impact. Because you publish an investigation and then you have to wait for something to happen, for the authorities to do something. You start calling them, looking for them, asking, “Did you read the investigation?” to try to make things move after you’ve been working for a year, year and a half, to publish something you think is really important. But with this space, we had real-time journalism with real-time impact. I thought, okay, next time, if we bring more politicians, more authorities, more people from NGOs into the room, we can connect people and we can make things move. We can share the information, and after that they can go to their places and do something with what we gathered.

Mike: Yeah. And I’m incredibly inspired by what you’re doing with this. Do you have plans to expand this and bring it to more venues in 2026, this specific play?

Maria Isabel: Yeah, we would love to. This year is our 10th anniversary—10 years of Mongabay Latam—so we are planning some workshops or conferences in different countries to celebrate that moment. So we have planned to have the play in Lima for sure one more time, and also in Colombia, probably in June or July. Every time we say we are going to do it again, we say, why, because it’s very time-consuming and we can’t sleep the day before, we can’t eat the day before. But I think it’s important. And we have some colleagues from theater who told us, you should take this to the regions, to the Amazon regions. Hopefully we can, but it’s expensive because these kinds of plays and features are expensive. But we are really interested in doing this again with this play, and trying to use the format to do other investigations and continue experimenting.

Mike: Well, Maria Isabel and Alexa, is there anything else we haven’t mentioned that you wanted to talk about, about this experience?

Maria Isabel: I would like to thank you again because this conversation also helps us reflect about our work, and for me, to think how we can move forward with more of these kinds of pieces. Sometimes we don’t reflect on our work, and it’s important because it helps us organize new things, to say, okay, this was successful, what can we do next? So yeah, hopefully we can make more of these efforts. And as always, I tell journalists who are interested in this: they can write to us, they can ask us, because collaboration is important. We don’t have to start from scratch. There is a lot of knowledge already out there, on the web, in theater, in everything, and to make more powerful investigations we need to collaborate, help each other with information, tools, and formats.

Alexa: Yes. I’m also grateful for this space, Mike. And we are thinking right now about which other investigations we can adapt—maybe not just in Peru, in other places in the region, in Mexico, Colombia. We hope we can have the budget to do these stories and to do this work, which is really challenging. Turning an investigation into a script was really hard.

Mike: Yeah. Well, if you need any help, you can always knock on my door. You know my background—this is kind of my bread and butter—and I have to say, it moved me to see you take the interactive theater medium and adapt it to journalism. It’s not something I considered, and I’m really inspired by what you’ve done. So thank you both for coming on and speaking with me today. It’s been a pleasure.

Maria Isabel: Thank you. And whenever—thank you so much. The invitation is open. We can talk about it, and happy to see you here in Peru, in Lima, and explore more.

Mike: Alright, take care. Thank you.

Maria Isabel: Take care. Bye. Thank—

Alexa: —you.

Maria Isabel: Bye.

Mike: You can find links to Los Vuelos de la Muerte, The Flights of Death, in the show notes. As always, if you’re enjoying the Mongabay Newscast and you want to help us out, we encourage you to spread the word about the work we’re doing by telling a friend and leaving a review. But you can also support us by becoming a monthly sponsor via our Patreon page at patreon.com/mongabay. We are a nonprofit news outlet, so when you pledge even just a dollar per month, it makes a pretty big difference and it helps us offset production costs. So if you’re a fan of our audio reports from Nature’s Frontline, go to patreon.com/mongabay to learn more and support the Mongabay Newscast. You can also read our news and inspiration from Nature’s Frontline at mongabay.com, or you can follow us on social media: find Mongabay on LinkedIn at Mongabay News, and on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and TikTok, where our handle is @mongabay, or on YouTube at mongabaytv. Thank you as always for listening.