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| Fellow Agustin del Castillo holding a wolf cub |
Agustin del Castillo, a former participant in an ICFJ training program, won the 2008 prize for excellence in environmental reporting in Latin America from the Reuters Foundation and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Del Castillo’s work on sustainable development in Mexico’s Gulf of California region will be recognized in Barcelona on October, 7th along with that of five other journalists honored for coverage of conservation in different parts of the world. At that time, one of the group will be selected to receive a $5,000 prize for the best story of all.
Del Castillo’s story, titled “Los nuevos millonarios de Riviera Nayarit”, was published last January by the Guadalajara daily Publico-Milenio. Del Castillo wrote it one year after he participated in the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) training program on covering sustainable development in the Gulf of California.
“The workshop helped me to understand the Gulf of California as a whole,” said del Castillo, who attended the workshop held in La Paz and Loreto in Baja California. Participants received training in how to cover biodiversity threats and coastal development. “It was a very valuable and comprehensive approach,” he said.
Del Castillo’s story focuses on the ecological devastation caused by beach and land privatization in Riviera Nayarit, an area that includes the towns of San Blas, Compostela and Bahia de Banderas. In his story, the Mexican journalist conducted research on the potential negative effects of urban development and real estate speculation on the regional ecosystem. Only through persistent efforts was he able to find information about the economic groups involved in this large-scale real estate project, whose main goal is to make Riviera Nayarit the new destination for American retirees.
With the help of environmental groups, the good will of his editors and the tools acquired at the ICFJ workshop, del Castillo was able to inform the public about the potential dangers of uncontrolled urban development.
“The programs we conduct at ICFJ get journalists to acquire practical investigation techniques to report on complex topics such as the coastal development in northwestern Mexico,” said Luis Botello, ICFJ senior program director.
In addition, Botello said that this program’s goal was to increase the number of sources for journalists working in northwestern Mexico and to give journalists a better understanding of sustainable development challenges in the region due to the speedy coastal development. Workshop activities included a boat visit to El Mogote, a pristine area of dunes and mangrove swamps threatened by tourism development projects; a visit to a failed development project in Puerto Escondido to see the biggest ecological challenges in the area; and a visit to Bahia de Loreto to meet with local environmental organizations and real estate developers.
Nonetheless, one of the most important elements of the program was facilitating access for the journalists to government sources. Within the workshop, ICFJ was able to arrange special travel for two Mexican government officials from Mexico City to Loreto so that they could speak to the participants face-to-face. Though they initially declined to speak on the record, the officials finally conceded and in this way the program was able to break the code of silence that surrounds urban development in Mexico.
In this way, del Castillo recalled that the workshop underscored “the lack of general knowledge and specialization among journalists,” and he added that the most important characteristic of this type of program is that it ends up benefiting society as a whole.
Beyond his joy at being recognized, del Castillo knows that this award constitutes motivation for him to continue. “It is an enormous surprise that fills me with satisfaction but is above all a responsibility and an incentive to keep improving,” he said.
As if that weren’t enough, in what constitutes a string of professional successes, on August 27 it was announced that del Castillo’s article titled “Cambio climático: mundos en desaparición, hombres bajo riesgo” was one of the winners of the 2008-2009 Avina Scholarships, sponsored by the Avina Foundation and awarded to foster journalistic research efforts in the area of sustainable development.
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Deadline: February 20, 2008
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For more information, contact:
Rob Taylor, Director
Science & Environmental Programs
or
Isaac Itman, Program Officer
iitman@icfj.org
1616 H Street, NW, Third Floor
Washington, D.C. 20006
Tel: 1-202-737-3700
Fax: 1-202-737-0530 |
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