Rainforest Defenders is a journalistic project that amplifies the voice and protagonism of young people from the Amazon, who are committed to defending their communities and the tropical forest against multiple threats. We are telling the climate emergency in Latin America through their diverse struggles.

The Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Journalism Fund opened a funding opportunity in the fall of 2018 and Francesc Badia i Dalmases imagined and set up, together with Brazilian environmental leader Raquel Rosenberg from Engajamundo, and Uruguayan documentary photographer and storyteller, Pablo Albarenga, the Rainforest Defenders project, which counted with the support of the Kara Solar Foundation in Ecuador, and Agenda Propia in Colombia. This series won the prestigious Gabo Prize in January 2021.

Our priority has been to bring the abstract issue of climate emergency to a personal dimension. To portray the young people's concerns, projects, dreams, and emotions on the ground with a message close to them; a statement of struggle, emotion, and hope.

Ednei, Dani, Drica, Joane and Tupi, n the Brazilian Tapajós, Betikre in the Xingú Indigenjous Reservation, Hamangaí in Bahía, Daniela in Altamira, Julián, Verónica, and Nantu in the Achuar territory in Ecuador, and Livia and José Gregorio in Colombia, make up a powerful choral voice through journalistic text, video, and photography, portraying a reality that is both hard, committed, and open to the future. The highest care is taken in the coverage of the stories, taking into account the sensibility of the protagonists, whose involvement in the entire journalistic process seeks to translate the visibility obtained into personal and collective empowerment.

These 10 episodes of the series Defensores de la Selva, produced in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, were published in full in El País, El País Brasil, Pulitzer Center, and individual pieces in The Washington Post, The Guardian, and the Chinese media Intium Media.