- Mongabay recently launched a brand-new bureau dedicated to covering the African continent in French and English, led by veteran Cameroonian journalist David Akana.
- Though Mongabay has covered Africa for all of its 25 years, the new bureau formalizes and ramps up its coverage of core environmental topics plus solutions-oriented stories, which Akana says are vital to delivering a fair picture of what happens on the continent.
- Akana joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss the importance of covering Africa well and why the news that happens there should be on readers’ radar worldwide.
- “The bottom line here is that whatever happens — whether it’s in the business of forests [or] biodiversity or climate change in the Congo Basin — [it] has linkages to anywhere else in the world,” Akana says.
No matter where you are, the air you breathe is almost certainly affected by the health and well-being of the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest, the Congo Basin, says David Akana, program manager for the newly launched Mongabay Africa bureau.
He joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss why news of the African continent should be on the minds of readers and listeners worldwide. In this conversation, he details Mongabay Africa’s priorities, why publishing in French and English is vital for impact, and how he plans to expand the bureau’s coverage.
Listen here:
Akana stresses that he wants people to see Mongabay Africa “not only … as a conservation news outlet, but one that has linkages to the overall economy, to the politics, to the culture, and to the overall society in Africa.”
He also elucidates why highlighting success stories is critical to fairly covering the massive continent.
“We also want to be associated to the fact that we are not just doom and gloom. We are also showing the positive side of the continent which is celebrating that biodiversity. It’s so beautiful when you fly across the Congo Basin because it’s so rich. And so that part of it should be celebrated in our journalism.”
View all of Mongabay Africa’s coverage at its website, here.
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Banner image: Tsavo East National Park in Kenya. Image by Damian Patkowski via Unsplash.
Mike DiGirolamo is a host & associate producer for Mongabay based in Sydney. He co-hosts and edits the Mongabay Newscast. Find him on LinkedIn, Bluesky and Instagram.
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Mongabay discusses the launch of Africa news bureau with director David Akana
