NPR Series on ACA Projects Wins White House Journalism Award

October 22, 2010

ACA’s hosting of NPR journalists in the summer of 2009 resulted in an award-winning multimedia package.

Reporter Lourdes Garcia-Navarro and photographer John Poole traveled along the Interoceanic highway in southern Peru with Adrian Forsyth and Enrique Ortiz, ACA’s president and vice-president, respectively. Joined by former secretary of the interior and ACA board member, Bruce Babbitt, the group visited some of the most impacted gold-mining areas, and witnessed firsthand the environmental destruction caused by the Interoceanic highway, a new road that will extend from the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil to the Pacific coast of Peru, threatening to create a band of deforestation that will cut the southwestern Amazon in two. The resulting multimedia piece has won an Award of Excellence from the White House News Photographers Association.

The group witnessed miles of deforestation, but they also visited one of the few glimpses of hope in the Amazon basin – ACA’s Los Amigos Biological Station. Here, they saw how the simple dedication of a few committed scientists preserve 360,000 acres of rainforest for research and future generations. To join the journey with the award-winning journalists, click on: Traveling Down the Amazon Road. To read more about the prestigious award from the White House News Photographers Association, see: White House News Photographers Association / Eyes of History. (Photos by John Poole)