Oxfam's CLIMATE MEDIA COLLABORATIVE invests in strategic communications to amplify local narratives that challenge the inequality of the climate crisis. We recognize that a human rights agenda for reducing emissions and addressing climate change must start with protecting indigenous and frontline communities in their efforts to oppose proliferation of oil and mining, while elevating their demands and solutions for a just energy transition. Below we offer a sample of some of the creative projects to emerge from the collaborative.
DOCUMENTARIES AND SHORTS
HOLD THE LINE follows the stories of human rights defenders on the frontlines of the climate crisis in South Africa, Colombia, and the United States. In a world on fire, they are challenging corporate abuse and protecting our shared environment. But they are more than activists. They are also parents, grandparents, sons, and daughters—and holding the line comes with serious personal risk. They are watching out for us, but is watching out for them?
NDATU SAVI-LA SUERTE DEL AGUA gives a voice to differing views on the sacred nature of water. For indigenous Mixtec communities upstream, the fate of water is in the hands of gods; for mestizo farmers and population in urban centers, everything revolves around water scarcity and pollution; for Afro Mexican fishermen downstream, the crucial issue is the abundance of fish and the complex relationship between river runoff and ocean saltwater.
TEKUANES GUARDIANES DEL AGUA tells the story of young environmentalists in El Escobal, Guatemala, who, by caring for the water and territory are connecting with their ancestral traditions and reclaiming their Xinka culture, all while challenging water pollution brought about by mining in their territory.
MUJERES INQUEBRANTABLES gives meaning of the struggle of indigenous peoples and women defenders of the Amazon of Peru and Colombia in the midst of increased violence against human and environmental rights defenders.
CLIMATE CHANGE, MINNG, AND ENERGY TRANSITION IN HWANGE ZIMBABWE shows the intersectionality of climate change, mining, and the energy transition from the perspective of community members in Hwange, Zimbabwe. It speaks to the need for citizen participation in decision making on climate issues.
THE COST OF MEDUPI documents the experiences of community members living next to Eksom’s Medupi power station, one of the largest coal power stations in the world.
MEDUPI AND HE ROSE OF LEPHALALE explores the impacts of the 4th largest coal mine in the world on women and girls in the community of Lephalale, South Africa.
WE CAN'T BREATHE recounts the environmental, health, and social consequences of living in a coal mining area in Phola and Standerton, South Africa.
The short documentary TEM FLORESTA,TEM MULHER (WHERE THERE IS A FOREST, THERE IS A WOMAN) brings the voices of women who, in the midst of setbacks and violations, are advocating for black women in the defense of their territories.
IMPACT OF CLAY MINING, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND QUARRY OPERATIONS ON LIVELIHOODS gives a first hand account of the challenges faced by communities affected by clay mining and quarry operations and their struggles in claiming compensation from companies. (not yet published)
The documentary REFLEJOS showcases the relationship between water, deforestation and livelihoods of women in the amazon. It highlights the urgency to stop deforestation and the violence that women defenders experience. The film featured at the Africa Human Rights Film Festival In South Africa (2024), at side events at the COP 16 on Biodiversity in Cali and in the international advocacy tour in Brussels in 2025 to elevate the profile of Amazonian women.
The VIDEO REPORTAGE on the catastrophic floods in Nigeria in 2022 led to the amplification the consequences of flooding and erosion on frontline communities, with a particular focus on women and youth. It prompted media coverage and a response by the government to invest in reconstruction efforts.
EVENTS
The Cinema for Climate Action event hosted by Creatives for Climate in Amsterdam’s Eye Film Museum offered a space for the creative industry to build solidarity. The more than 300 participants engaged in a night of networking and thought-provoking conversations anchored by screenings of the documentary Hold the Line and a special cut of Netflix’s Buy Now: The shopping Conspiracy. The event emphasized that creative communications and storytelling can drive effective change and challenged participants to find their role in the climate movement.
Creatives for Climate hosted SHAPING THE CLIMATE JUSTICE NARRATIVE WITH OXFAM. The webinar featured a discussion on how the creative industries can support Human Rights Defenders on the frontline of the climate crisis.
In HOW TO COVER ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS, Mongabay provided tips and insight for reporters who cover the work of environmental defenders--and how to do it safely.
The 6th and 7th editions of the AFRICA HUMAN RIGHS FILM FESTIVAL aimed to raise local awareness of human and environmental rights abuses that would otherwise go unnoticed by both the affected communities and the general public.
COUNTRY CAMPAIGNS
VOCES DE VIDA CAMPAIGN for territorial defense, conservation, and resistance to agribusiness and mega infrastructure projects by small Mexican partners, Frente Juvenil de Tepoztlán; Tochan Nuestra Casa MOOTS Ac; Flor y Canto AC; and Colectivo Sembradoras de Milpa Alta y Colectivo Sembradoras de Xochimilco. See accompanying video introduction here.
PREMIOS HACIA LA EXTINCION campaign by Peruvian partner MOCCIC uses humor to grant awards to the companies or institutions that have caused the most damage to the environment. See more HERE and HERE and HERE.
SOMOS CENTRO AMERICA CAMPAIGN touched on issues of climate justice and, in collaboration with singer Rebecca Lane, invited youth to submit songs, videos, illustrations, and photos on their challenges and hopes for the region.
The DEFENDER EL TERRITORIO ES DEFENDER LA VIDA campaign (Central America) in collaboration with partners SONOG, CODIDENA, and Hora Cero published stories of resistance to extractive activity and facilitated conversations with human rights defenders to make visible their struggles and highlight the urgency for protection mechanisms.
WHERE THERE IS A FOREST STANDING, THERE IS A WOMAN campaign (Brasil) highlights the contributions to climate justice and environmental conservation of Indigenous and Quilombola women.
MUJERES DEFENSORAS DE SUS CUERPOS Y TERRITORIOS campaign brings attention to the violence lived by women activists. The campaign will be launched in collaboration with Oxfam International and the feminist international magazine Volcanicas. It will be grounded in the discussions around the Escazu Agreement. (not funded directly through Ford)
Various CAMPAIGNS TO ELEVATE CLIMATE CHANGE MESSAGING IN INDONESIA and share solutions and stories of frontline communities pushing for economic justice and fair food syestems.
SHORT VIDEO SERIES
UN RECIT POUR LE CLIMAT video series from partner Teranga Labs explores the experiences of frontline communities affected by coastal erosion and climate change in Saint Louis, Senegal.
THE FEED ZW is partner Magamba Network's video-based initiative for young Zimbabwean storytellers. The series seeks to mainstream issues of climate, the economy, and culture. Videos produced include 'Zimbabwean voices after COP 26', 'Cyclone Idai Aftermath', 'The Gendered aspect of climate change', Can technology combat climate change?', and 'Young women living with disabilities speak on climate change'
SHOTS DE CIENCIA- LAS CAPRICHOSAS developed this video retelling the story of Amazonian women that live as one with the rainforest and work to preserve it even in the face of legislative hurdles and challenges to their livelihoods.
PODCAST SERIES
PODCAST SERIES showcasing the voices of fishing communities in Bargny, Senegal whose livelihoods have been impacted by coastal erosion and offshore oil exploration.
PODCAST: LA APUESTA DE PETRO EN LA COP 28 with LA SILLA VACIA, through a journalistic fellowships in Colombia.
Yes, there are people living in the Amazon! And they are protecting a territory of importance to all of humanity! This PODCAST SERIES tells the life stories of quilombola women, babaçu coconut breakers and extractivist communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
Various episodes of ANPUK YOUTH COMMUNICATORS COLLECTIVE podcast (Guatemala) highlighting the importance of water on ancestral culture and land.
In MUJERES QUE MIRAN A OTRAS MUJERES POD CAST SERIES, women from different parts of the Amazon explain their profound relationship to theri territory, and disucss how deforestation is impamapcting their livelihoods, calling them to resist, and protect the forest.
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS PROFILES
In Colombia, fighting for the future of the Amazon includes standing up for the lives and rights of women.
Read more about Magaly Belalcázar Ortega, Human Rights Defender, Colombia. ENG / ESP
Around the world, mining interests are robbing rural communities of their health, well-being, and rights; in a town in Guatemala, they robbed a teenage activist of her life.
Read more about Alexander Reynoso Bran, Human Rights Activist, Guatemala. ENG / SPA
BLOGS
Members of Congress call for stronger protection for rights defenders- READ MORE: ENG/ ESP
Mecanismos que no protegen: una dura realidad que enfrentan los defensores y defensoras del ambiente y el territorio en el Perú. READ MORE
Human rights defenders in the crosshairs. READ MORE
Can we keep pace with Climate loss and damage. READ MORE
Protecting human rights: clear guidance is a piece of the puzzle. READ MORE
Mining companies can lead on climate–but only if they break from the past. READ MORE
Justiça por Bernadete Pacífico. READ MORE
Congress must support Human Rights Defenders. READ MORE
Empowering local voices in the fight against climate change. READ MORE
PUBLICATIONS
Threats to Human Rights Defenders: Six ways companies should respond: This paper details how companies should respond to the growing number of threats facing human rights defenders, offering six key recommendations. It also gives an introduction to the threats they face and an overview of the existing normative framework for the protection of defenders. READ MORE
Antologia Ayak Sawak Xinka: Una antología creada como una contribución valiosa para la preservación y difusión del arte de escritores y escritoras inspirados por el territorio Xinka.
THE PERCEPTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN SENEGAL'S COASTAL AREAS analyses communities' understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change with a view to influence policy and media reporting.
ARTICLES
Hundreds of articles through independent environmental news agency MONGABAY on topics of human rights defenders, conservation, and a just energy transition. READ MORE
And dozens more articles through journalistic partnerships in Peru, Colombia, Indonesia and others that are shining a light on local realities of climate change and calls for climate justice. Some examples are below.
El Espectador-Colombia: Así es la lucha de las mujeres de la Amazonía por defender su territorio. 71% of murders of women environmental defenders are concentrated in Cauca, Nariño, Valle and Putumayo. They have faced war, drug trafficking, mining, in addition to the constant presence of armed groups and sexual assault.
El Espectador-Colombia: Las mujeres indígenas que resguardan el territorio y la cultura en Putumayo. In this department, home to the Siona, Kofan, Koreguaje, Inga and Kamëntsá peoples, women's organizations have confronted the armed conflict and have promoted the defense of their rights.
El Espectador-Colombia: Las mujeres del Caqueta que enfrentan el machismo y defienden la Amazonia. This department in the Amazon region is home to women who bet their lives on leadership, in a territory marked by conflict, the rubber and coca boom, cattle ranching and deforestation. Here are three of their stories.
La Silla Vacia-Colombia: Asi es la apuesta popular del gobierno Petro para preservar la Amazonia. To save the Amazon, payment to communities for environmental protection is taking shape in the Colombian Amazon.
AgendaPropia-Colombia: Entre palmas, malokas, y selva: La mujer Tikuna que reforesta la vida de un pueblo. Yaneth Ahue Cerrón, leader of the Tikuna people, and her community of Puerto Esperanza in the Colombian Amazon are fighting to preserve their maloka and the balance of life.
Publimetro- Mujeres lideresas indigenas en Guainia denuncian con su activismo la extraccion minera en balsa en el rio Atabapo. Women leaders in Guainía are raising their voices against the depredation that gold mining is leaving on the environment.
Floresa-Indonesia: ‘Cari Ikan Sudah Susah,’ Nelayan Transpuan di Sikka Berjibaku Hadapi Dampak Perubahan Iklim. Tells the stories of the struggles of fishing communities brought about by climate change.
Ojo Publico-Peru: COP28: Finaliza con un llamado a terminar con los combustibles fósiles. The climate summit in Dubai concluded with a call for more than 190 countries to contribute to moving away from fossil fuels. The agreement was celebrated by most countries, yet representatives of developing nations and civil society stress that this is only the beginning and that the transition must be just and equitable.
Ojo Publico-Peru: Estudio sugiere que caída de producción petrolera puede impulsar la transición energética.Today, the Peruvian jungle presents a gloomy picture for oil production. Extracting crude oil involves high costs and few profits. The Institute for the Governance of Natural Resources has just published a report in which it analyzes economic variables, and concludes that it is time to reduce oil production in the Amazon and opt for renewable energies.
Ojo Publico-Peru: Sin registro: los metales silenciosos del boom minero peruano del cobre. Peru consolidated its position as the world's second-largest copper producer at the end of 2023, with 2.7 million metric tons. A study by CooperAcción reveals that strategic minerals leave the country silently. In other words, there is no public record of how much of copper products needed for the energy transition are exported.
Ojo Publico-Peru: Estudios alertan deforestación permanente y posible colapso de la cuenca Amazónica al 2050. About half of the Amazon is at risk of collapsing by the year 2050, according to a study published in the journal Nature, which points to the causes of increased temperature, variability in the season and intensity of rainfall, extreme droughts and deforestation. Meanwhile, in Peru, in less than 40 years, the growth of mining and agricultural activity has caused the loss of 2.8 million hectares of vegetation in the Amazon forest alone. Indigenous peoples are among the groups most affected by this advance.
The role of Women in creating alternatives for the production of raw materials.It is important that fashion helps to design alternative socioeconomic matrices, capable of strengthening sustainable local development and preserving biomes...
Onde tem floresta em pé, tem mulher. International Women's Day is a day of tribute, but little is said about the anonymous women who have made a difference in their communities, protecting water and forests. I am Maria Nice Machado Costa, better known as Dona Nice, a black woman, quilombola, babassu coconut breaker and I live with hundreds of women in the fight for the rights of quilombola peoples and for the protection, preservation and conservation of forests, rivers and lakes.
Credits:
Design and writing: Eloisa Devietti