Mongabay contributing editor Malavika Vyawahare has been awarded a 2025 SEAL environmental journalism award, which recognizes reporters covering the complexities of the environment and climate.
“This award is a huge encouragement for me, as a journalist and as an exhausted toddler mom,” Vyawahare said. “It is also a recognition of the kind of work Mongabay makes possible, the space it creates for its staff and contributors to write meaningful stories.”
The annual award is presented by SEAL (Sustainability, Environmental Achievement & Leadership), a U.S.-based environmental advocacy organization. Vyawahare is the latest Mongabay journalist or contributor to win the award; previous winners include Spoorthy Raman in 2024, Karla Mendes and Basten Gokkon in 2022, and Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler in 2020.
“Mongabay is an outstanding publication whose writers have made our finalist list for multiple years running,” Safa Bee Wesley, impact lead at SEAL Awards, told Mongabay by email. “Malavika’s writing in particular is noteworthy for her ability to flip between a diverse set of topics (fossil fuels and renewables one moment, toxic chemicals in breastmilk the next, the impact of trade on deforestation in a third moment), and she is able to translate complex concepts from scientific language into comprehensible explanations that any reader can digest, while retaining an elevated and authoritative voice.”
Vyawahare, who divides her time between La Réunion and India, currently writes and edits for Mongabay’s Africa team. “Right now, we are knee-deep in figuring out what ‘just energy’ means for the continent’s residents,” she said. “I am excited to help environmental coverage in the region expand, deepen, and become more inclusive.”
Vyawahare added she’s also always looking out for “mouth-watering oceans stories” to add to Mongabay’s reporting on everything from deep-sea mining to coral bleaching.
In addition to Vyawahare, the 2025 SEAL award honors 11 other reporters, including those who’ve written for The Washington Post, Grist, The Guardian, The Ecologist, El País, the Los Angeles Times and the Financial Times.
“Increasingly in the last several years, we have searched for winners who not only demonstrate high caliber writing but also cover a wide range of topics, geographies and varied publication styles, as we believe the complex intricacies of the climate crisis require that attention be given to the broadest possible set of perspectives,” Wesley said.
As for Vyawahare, she said she hopes her daughter will grow up to eventually appreciate the environmental stories she’s reported on. “My daughter is just starting to string together two-word sentences, and I can’t wait for her to read something I wrote and maybe feel proud or at least learn something about the planet.”
Winners of the annual SEAL environmental journalism award are “selected based on a panel review of their body of work, data-driven assessment of impact and reach, and special consideration for reporting that brings fresh social relevance and creative insight to environmental issues,” according to the award press release.
Banner image by Malavika Vyawahare.
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