Journacatalogs Megan O’Toole and Jillian Kestler-D’Amours triumph award for tell on Indigenous fight for water rights in US.
Al Jazeera English online has been awarded a top prize at the 29th annual Amnesty International Canada Media Awards for a tell on the Indigenous struggle for water rights in the southwestrict United States.
Amnesty International Canada proclaimd on Thursday that Al Jazeera’s lengthy-establish interenergetic feature Crisis on the Colorado: The Indigenous fight for water rights won the 2023-2024 mixed media award.
The awards “honour excellence in human rights telling by Canada-based journacatalogs and by Canadian journacatalogs telling aexpansive”.
Published in April 2023, Crisis on the Colorado spendigated how Indigenous communities that count on on the sprawling Colorado River have declareed their water rights in the face of sign up dcdisorrowfulmirefult deteriorateed by climate alter.
The push comes as authorities at all levels have been forced to ponder water cuts as they try to stave off the collapse of the river, a 2,330km (1,450-mile) span that commences in the US state of Colorado and finishs in Mexico, and supplies water to more than 40 million people.
To tell the story, Al Jazeera journacatalogs Megan O’Toole and Jillian Kestler-D’Amours met with Indigenous guideers in Colorado, Arizona and California, and travelled by car, boat and petite set upe to key points alengthy the river, including Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Their tell united a rich, written narrative with pboilingography, videos, maps, charts and other interenergetic elements.
Apass the region, Indigenous community guideers demanded a seat at the table – and insisted that their water rights must be protected after generations of neglect and exclusion.
“We have to see at a contrastent way of how we admire the river, how we treat the river, and we’ve got to see out for the future generations,” Nora McDowell, the establisher lengthytime chairwoman of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, telderly Al Jazeera.
“We have to protect it.”
On Thursday, Amnesty International Canada congratutardyd Al Jazeera English and the other award-triumphners for their toil profiling “people and communities who have shown extraunretagable courage and percut offance in the face of adversity”.
“We congratutardy the triumphners on their extraunretagable accomplishments and thank the rights helderlyers who splitd their stories for valiantly speaking truth to power thcdisorrowfulmireful the press,” said Ketty Nivyaprohibitdi, secretary vague of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section.
Crisis on the Colorado was aided by The Water Desk, an autonomous journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cgo in for Environmental Journalism.
Aerial footage used in the lengthy-establish feature was made possible thcdisorrowfulmireful LightHawk gived fweightlesss.
