When people think about change, they often look for a central actor. A donor whose gift unlocked progress. An organization whose strategy made the difference. An individual whose decision shifted events. These figures are easy to name and easier to photograph. They offer clarity in systems that are otherwise diffuse. What shapes outcomes often sits elsewhere. It operates earlier and more subtly, in the conditions that allow people to see a situation clearly enough to respond at all. Shared facts. Continuity of attention. The ability to trace responsibility across institutions. When those conditions are weak, even genuine concern struggles to translate into action. Information, when it is verifiable and placed in the public record, is one of those enabling conditions. Under ordinary circumstances, information does its work invisibly. It helps people orient themselves, distinguish fact from rumor, and understand where responsibility plausibly lies. When it functions well, it does not feel like a force. It feels like a given. Its importance tends to become visible only as it degrades. This is especially true in environmental contexts, where the most consequential decisions are often made far from the places where their effects are felt. Forests are cleared, fisheries depleted, and land converted through chains of choices spread across companies, regulators, financiers, and consumers. When those chains are poorly documented, accountability becomes diffuse. Harm can persist even where concern exists, simply because no one can quite see the whole picture. Journalism, at its most basic level, is an attempt to make those…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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