2024 Bertha
Challenge Investigative Journalist Fellows
Ivan Brehaut Larrea
Location: Peru
Host Organization: Asociación ProPurús
Ivan Brehaut Larrea is a journalist specializing in Indigenous peoples, the Amazon and environmental issues, with a focus on extractive and road industries. Ivan has 30 years of experience in the development of multidisciplinary scientific and social management work. Among many awards, he was the winner of the Pulitzer Foundation’s 2020 Amazon Rainforest Journalism Fellowship and winner of the CAPIR 2023 Fellowship on environmental crimes in the Amazon.
For his Fellowship year, Ivan investigated the disinformation campaigns orchestrated by powerful oil and logging companies as well as right-wing political groups who spread disinformation denying the existence of Indigenous groups in protected forest lands in order to open up these protected areas of the Amazon to logging, extraction and agriculture. He investigated how these disinformation campaigns had deadly consequences for indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon.
Article: ‘The interests behind the deniers of isolated indigenous populations’ [September 2024]
Article: ‘Businessmen and politicians: pro-extractive and anti-PIACI’ [October 2024]
Article: ‘Contacted and in danger’ [October 2024]
Article: ‘PIACI deniers (and with the help of the Ombudsman)’ [October 2024]
Article: ‘The Ombudsman and senior officials endorse and organization that violates the rights of isolated indigenous peoples’ [October 2024]
Patrick Egwu
Location: Nigeria
Host Organization: Ripples Nigeria
Patrick Egwu Patrick Egwu is a Nigerian investigative journalist and media researcher. He covers human rights, social justice, conflict and development and has reported from Toronto, Chicago, Berlin, Lagos and Johannesburg. Among his many accolades as an investigative journalist, Patrick was an Open Society Foundations Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and a finalist for the 2022 Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Journalism. He was a 2023 recipient of Texas A&M University’s Conflict and Development grants to investigate armed conflict in northwest Nigeria and impacts on marginalized communities.
For his Bertha Challenge project, Patrick investigated the failure of international oil companies to acknowledge or take responsibility for destruction caused by oil spills and the impact of corruption in the management of Nigeria’s Ecological Fund.
Article: ‘How Shell is pushing climate disinformation in Nigeria’s Niger Delta’ [September 2024]
Article: ‘After an oil spill, Eni claimed it never happened’ [September 2024]
Article: ‘Nigeria’s Ecological Funds: Corruption, misappropriation runs deep’ [November 2024]
Article: ‘The Ecological Project Office awarded a contract… then diverted it’ [November 2024]
Article: ‘Despite ecological funding, floods wreck Benue community’ [November, 2024]
Karin Kőváry Sólymos
Location: The Slovak Republic
Host Organization: Investigative Center of Jan Kuciak
Karin Kőváry Sólymos Karin Kőváry Sólymos is a Slovak journalist, working for the Investigative Centre of Ján Kuciak (ICJK). Karin primarily focuses on disinformation, Russian propaganda, information operations, and OSINT investigations. She and her colleagues won the 2022 Slovak Press Prize for investigative reporting for a series of texts on the Russian propaganda website NewsFront. Before joining ICJK, she worked as an editor and presenter for the Slovak national broadcaster RTVS.
Karin’s Bertha Challenge project investigated the positive image biofuels have developed in Central Europe. She exposed the greenwashing behind Slovakia’s first-generation biofuel industry and its consequences for agriculture, land use and policy making in the region.
Article: ‘Biofuels enriching CEE oligarchs instead of curing the climate crisis?’ [June 2024]
Article: ‘Slovakia's Biofuels: Industry profits eclipse critical debate’ [August 2024]
Film: ‘Biofuels: A cure for the climate crisis or greenswashing?’ [December 2024]
I Gusti Gede Maha Suasana Adi
Location: Indonesia
Host Organization: Green Press Indonesia
I Gusti Gede Maha Suasana Adi’s journalistic career spans more than 25 years in various media outlets in Indonesia. He has served as editor of the weekly magazines Tempo and National Geographic-Indonesia and was awarded dozens of journalistic awards and fellowships. He is co-founder and chairman of the national online media syndicate Green Press Indonesia, as well as co-founder of The Forest Watch Indonesia, a non-governmental organization dedicated to increasing transparency in the forestry sector.
As a Bertha Challenge Fellow, Adi investigated the influence of energy lobbyists on Indonesia’s energy policies and national emission commitments. Adi exposed just how reliant Indonesia’s state owned electricity company is on coal and how corruption and disinformation are hindering Indonesia’s move to renewable energy.
Article: ‘Web of Lies: When Coal Corruption Fuels Disinformation' [June 2024]
Article: ‘Destroying nature for energy’ [August 2024]
Article: ‘The hate our solar’ [December 2024]
Film: ‘Retirement is Death: Coal corruption and climate disinformation in Indonesia’ [December 2024]
Stefano Valentino
Location: Italy
Host Organization: Voxeurop
Stefano Valentino is an Italian journalist and Investigations Manager at Voxeurop.eu. His work specializes in EU affairs and globalization, with a focus on exposing the connections between socio-environmental sustainability, corporate lobbying and resources-related conflicts. He has extensively investigated the industry influence on EU lawmaking and the harmful impact of EU so-called “green policies” both in Europe and in developing countries.
Stefano’s work has appeared in leading media outlets in different countries such as the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, EU Observer, La Repubblica, Liberation, Der Spiegel. He is the founder of the Google-funded collaborative journalism platform MobileReporter.
During his Bertha Challenge Fellowship, Stefano exposed how money in ‘green investment’ portfolios were funding some of the most environmentally damaging industries, including coal extraction, hydrocarbon production and car makers. Stefano visited a Glencore mine in South Africa, where a JP Morgan ‘green investment’ scheme was funding coal mining that was poisoning local drinking water. He also posed undercover to show how investors are presented with false information about the sustainability credentials of their portfolios.
Stefano’s Bertha Challenge work was re-printed in numerous outlets across Europe, including The Guardian, Domanii, Mediapart and Desmog, and was recognized with a European Journalism Centre Climate Journalism Award.
Article: ‘How big finance greenwashes climate crisis culprits’ [June 2024]
Article: ‘How Italy’s largest fossil fuel company uses climate-related bonds as a loophole to keep financing hydrocarbons’ [October 2024]
Article: ‘Behind the green curtain: uncovering the disinformation game of global asset managers’ [October 2024]
Article: ‘‘Coal kills us as you earn your greenwashed profits’ – How environmentally responsible investors are unwittingly profiting from German mega coal industry’ [December 2024]
Article: ‘JP Morgan greenwashes water pollution by Glencore in South Africa’ [December 2024]
Handbook: ‘How to expose greenwashing and disinformation in the finance sector’ [December 2024]
Film: ‘Investigating how big finance greenwashes big polluters’ [December 2024]
Liubov Velychko
Location: Ukraine
Host Organization: Mind.ua
Liubov Velychko is an investigative journalist who has contributed to notable Ukrainian media outlets such as Mind.ua, LIGA.net, Slovo i dilo. She mentors regional journalists and conducts training sessions on undercover work, OSINT, and storytelling. As a member of OCCRP and N-ost, Liubov conducted cross-border investigations on money laundering, high-ranking corruption, and environmental issues. Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Liubov has focused on Russian assets, influence agents, and political lobbying.
Liubov’s Bertha Challenge work examined how the world’s largest oil, gas and coal companies use disinformation to hinder countries from fulfilling their international climate obligations. She analyzed the spread of disinformation through popular media outlets in countries that are among the largest greenhouse gas emitters, including the U.S., India, Russia, Australia and Ukraine. In doing so, she exposed the extent of industry lobbying networks’ connections to politicians, research centers and international institutions.
Article: ‘“Eco-friendly” gas and “scientific” coal mining’ [May 2024]
Article: '$200bn for Russia and a green light for coal.' [July 2024]
Article: ‘$600bn for a false solution: How scientists and associations spread climate crisis disinformation and why it is funded by oil and gas companies' profits’ [September 2024]
Article: ‘Gazprom- and Shell-Paid Lies: How the Russian and American political model of disseminating climate crisis disinformation to truckle to polluters works’ [October 2024]
Article: ‘Trump and his “crazy” whales. Fighting the battle against wind energy for oil and gas companies’ funds. And who and how spreads climate disinformation’ [December 2024]
Article: ‘“Windmills are going to pull dogs out of their kennels”: Oil and gas sector’s disinformation preventing the development of clean energy in the Carpathians’ [December 2024]
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