Pulitzer Center Rainforest Reporting Grant

The Pulitzer Center Rainforest Reporting Grant supports journalists reporting on critical issues in tropical forests, particularly in the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia. This grant encourages innovative and collaborative proposals while providing essential resources and training. Grants typically range from $8,000 to $15,000, focusing on underreported topics that connect local and global perspectives. The initiative emphasizes transparency, governance, and in-depth reporting to combat illegal wildlife trade and harmful extraction practices.

NOTE: The Rainforest Journalism Fund has evolved into the  Pulitzer Center Rainforest Reporting Grant.
The new Rainforest Reporting Grant is an evolution of the Rainforest Journalism Fund (RJF), which was launched in 2018. Over five years, RJF has supported more than 300 projects and 600 journalists who produced 1,700 reports. Their impacts range from: a sanction against corporate mining activities in DRC, a policy revision on a government agriculture program in Indonesia, and international attention on widespread illegal wildlife trades. Read more about RJF’s background and achievements here.
Through this grant, the Pulitzer Center continues to provide short-term project support to journalists reporting in tropical forests, but seeks more ambitious proposals: larger in scale, and collaborative and innovative in approaches. The initiative will continue to provide resources and capacity to journalists through selective training and networking opportunities with other Pulitzer Center grantees and Fellows.
The Rainforest Reporting Grant is supported by Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI).
How it Works
The Rainforest Reporting Grant supports journalists, staff and freelancers, to report on issues in tropical forests, especially in three main rainforest regions—Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia. Applications for regional and international projects are reviewed by editors who are experts on the issues and regions. Journalists can submit applications in five languages (English, French, bahasa Indonesia, Portuguese, and Spanish) and can produce reports in these or other languages.
Transparency and governance is a cross-cutting theme for all of our focus areas. We seek applications with in-depth reporting that follow illegal wildlife trades across borders; shed light on harmful forest extraction industries; and investigate the systems, organizations, and people that enable corruption.
Apply for a Grant
The Rainforest Reporting Grant funds costs associated with reporting projects on rainforests, with an emphasis on unreported or underreported issues in the regions and how they connect on a global scale. The amount of individual grants will depend on the project and detailed budget planning, such as travel costs, fees for local reporting partners, and translation and related costs. Most grants fall in the range of $8,000 to $15,000, but depending on project specifics, such as expenses for technology or consultancy, these rates may be higher.
Specific grant terms are negotiated during the application process.

Eligibility

We encourage journalists of all backgrounds and identities to apply. Freelancers are eligible. A staff reporter or an editor with an idea can also apply. More than one person can apply together, and an editor can apply on behalf of a team as long as the editor provides basic information about the journalists on the team.Journalists from all countries and territories are eligible for grants.

Ineligibility

Books (we can support a story that might become part of a book, as long as the story is published independently in a media outlet) Feature-length films (we do support short documentaries with ambitious distribution plans) Staff salaries Equipment purchases (equipment rentals are considered on a case-by-case basis) An outlet’s general expenses (for example rent, utilities, insurance) Seed money for start-upsRoutine breaking news and coverage Advocacy/marketing campaigns Data projects aimed solely at academic research. Data should be developed to enhance/support journalism.