The Mongabay series “Palm Oil War,” published between 2021 to 2023, won second place in the text category of Brazil’s National Federal Prosecutor’s Journalism Prize, one of the nation’s most prestigious impact journalism awards.
The announcement that Mongabay’s investigative journalist Karla Mendes had won the award was made during a live ceremony on Nov. 23 in Brasília, Brazil’s capital. Judges highlighted the series’ direct impact on environmental justice, citing its use in court cases by federal and state prosecutors.
Mendes’ investigation exposed environmental damage and violence hiding behind a façade of certifications and industry promises that granted the burgeoning palm oil industry the status of a sustainable economic alternative for local communities.
In the first of three parts, the on-the-ground investigation revealed that Brazil’s top palm oil producer and exporter, Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF) had contaminated key water sources in northern Pará state with agrotoxins used in its plantations, making the drinking water unusable for the Tembé people living in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Territory, in the Tomé-Açú municipality.
The Indigenous community said the contamination also killed off fish and wild game, key food sources for the region’s residents. BBF denies the accusations.
Federal prosecutors used Mendes’ findings as evidence in legal proceedings to hold palm oil companies accountable for water pollution on Indigenous territories. In 2022, the prosecutors won the right to carry out a forensic investigation on the environmental impacts of pesticides from oil palm plantations, a breakthrough moment in a challenging eight-year legal battle.
In the second and third parts of her investigation, Mendes uncovered wrongdoing by Agropalma, Brazil’s second-largest palm oil producer and exporter, finding that the company held fraudulent land titles for more than half of its 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) of palm plantations in Pará state.
The area is claimed as ancestral land by Indigenous peoples and Quilombola communities, autonomous settlements established by descendants of enslaved Africans who have their property rights enshrined in the Brazilian Constitution. Studies show they were forcibly displaced from these areas to give room to oil palm plantations.
Both the Quilombola and Indigenous communities said the palm oil company destroyed three-quarters of their cemetery.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil suspended Agropalma’s certification following Mongabay’s publication. Agropalma denies the accusations.
In 2023, her investigation won second place in the Lincoln Awards for journalism on urban policy, sustainable development and climate change. In 2022, she earned second place in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Kevin Carmody Award and third in the Fetisov Journalism Awards for Excellence in Environmental Journalism.
Banner image: Mongabay journalist Karla Mendes won the second-place prize at Brazil’s National Federal Prosecutor (ANPR) award ceremony for her investigative series on Amazonian palm oil. Image courtesy of ANPR.
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