Mongabay reporter Karla Mendes has won the 2025 John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, announced on July 23. Her investigation in the Brazilian Amazon uncovered a direct connection between the expansion of the cattle industry in Maranhão state and an increase in violent crime against the inhabitants of the state’s Arariboia Indigenous Territory. Established in 1994, the Oakes Award is considered one of the top prizes in journalism, recognizing exceptional contributions to the public’s understanding of environmental issues. Mendes’s win marks a first for both Mongabay and a Brazilian journalist. “Mendes’s reporting is an extraordinary achievement of documentation, multimedia and data reporting, mapping, and analyses,” the judges wrote of the award, announced at Colombia University in the U.S. “Mendes risked her life multiple times to report from the ground, moving through areas dominated by the cattle ranchers to reach the Arariboia people in one of the most dangerous areas in the world.” Mendes’s investigation showed how criminal networks tied to the cattle industry drove a wave of violence and deaths against the Arariboia territory’s Indigenous Guajajara people, particularly those defending their land as forest guardians in the absence of support from the state. Her reporting revealed that between 1991 and 2023, 38 Guajajara individuals were killed, though no one has been convicted for any of the killings to date and most suspects have never stood trial.   Following Mongabay’s publication of the investigation in a three-part series, federal prosecutors said they used Mendes’s reporting and video footage as…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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