BD journo gets Developing Asia Journalism Award, Tokyo

Among the five winners of this year’s Developing Asia Journalism Awards (DAJA) is Bangladeshi environment journalist Abu Siddique, a contributing editor for the 25-year-old global environment news site Mongabay.com. His winning entry, “Amid changing climate, Bangladesh farming groups conserve indigenous rice seeds,” published by Mongabay, tells the story of a man from Shyamnagar Upazila in Satkhira who has been collecting and preserving seeds of indigenous, salinity-tolerant paddy breeds to help farmers adapt to the changing climate. 

Hosted by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the DAJA program rewards top journalism that accurately reports on global efforts advancing sustainable development amid intensifying climate risks, according to its news release. Chosen from more than 160 entries from across Asia and the Pacific, the five winning journalists published articles that illustrate the diverse impacts of climate change on people’s lives and livelihoods, it says.

Siddique worked for some of the nation’s leading news outlets, including Dhaka Tribune, Daily Sun and The Business Standard for a decade, as well as influential global outlets The Third Pole and Climate Home News, before becoming an editor for Mongabay. He has explored the remotest corners of the country in search of stories that have often made headlines and hit the talking points. 

This award is only his latest: In 2018, his investigation for Dhaka Tribune “The hungry children of Mother Ganges” won a South Asian Digital Media Award, and also that year, his feature “Solar street lamps light up rural Bangladesh village” won a UN-OHRLLS’s Voices of Brighter Future Award. 

Siddique will collect this latest award during a ceremony in Tokyo on July 8th. During the event, he and his fellow award winners will discuss how journalism and research can complement each other to inform climate risks, adaptation and mitigation efforts with ADBI staff, the DAJA judges and advisory panel.

Mongabay.com is an award-winning, nonprofit environmental news platform with bureaus in Indonesia, Latin America, India, Africa and the United States, publishing original, daily reporting in six languages for 5 million monthly readers. More info here.