The Canary just won an award for its environmental journalism

It’s the Canary’s tenth anniversary year – and so, it’s fitting that for the first time in our decade-long journey, we’ve won an award. Not just any old award, mind. The SEAL Award puts us in the same company as (hold your nose) the Guardian, the Financial Times, and the Washington Post.

The Canary has won a SEAL Award

The Sustainability, Environmental Achievement, and Leadership (SEAL) Awards have been running for several years. And now, the Canary’s Monica Piccinini has been recognised with one of the 12 awards in 2025. Monica has been working tirelessly on issues surrounding the Amazon rainforest: exposing the state and corporations’ destruction of it, their human rights violations against its indigenous peoples, and how this crucial ecosystem is central to the survival of us and the planet.

Now, SEAL has recognised Monica’s work for the top-notch investigative reporting that it is – and has given her one of this year’s journalism awards. She’s in what some may consider esteemed company – although at the Canary, we’d question that. Regardless, Monica joins the following roll-call of winners of a SEAL Award this year:

• Amudalat Ajasa • Washington Post, Guardian, Hofstra Chronicle.
• Sheree Bega • Mail and Guardian.
• Aaron Cantú • Capital and Main.
• Jael Holzman • Heatmap.
• Sanket Jain • Co-founder of Insight Walk; Earth Journalism, Yale Climate Connections.
• María Mónica Monsalve S. • El País.
• Brendan Montague • the Ecologist; founder of DeSmog UK.
• Monica Piccinini • the Ecologist, the Canary.
• Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco • Grist, Chicago Public Media.
• Hayley Smith • L.A. Times.
• Malavika Vyawahare • Mongabay.
• Eva Xiao • Financial Times.

Groundbreaking work

You can read Monica’s extensive back catalogue of vital work for the Canary here. She said of the SEAL Award:

Receiving the 2025 SEAL Environmental Journalism Award is genuinely moving.

So much of this work happens quietly, following threads that often lead to difficult truths about our environment, people’s health, and their rights.

The Canary has given me the freedom to pursue those stories fully, and I’m deeply grateful to our editor and the whole team for backing that work every step of the way. This recognition is a reminder of why thorough, persistent reporting matters, and why these stories need to be told. It encourages me to keep asking difficult questions and to continue reporting with honesty and accountability.

Thank you, Monica!

Editor-in-chief and CEO of the Canary Steve Topple said:

Monica’s work for the Canary is a testament to her resilience, passion, and perseverance as a journalist. She has relentlessly exposed both state and corporate mendacity and violence when it comes to the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous peoples.

Often putting herself personally in the firing line, Monica has reported on some of the most pressing issues of our time when it comes to the future of the planet – not least the destructive and catastrophic BR-319 highway; the COP summits and their inability to affect meaningful change, and how corporate operations in the Amazon threaten the health of us all.

For us, Monica is the epitome of what rigorous, independent, disruptive, punching-up journalism should be; the kind that only a handful of outlets like the Canary and our friends at the Ecologist would platform. We’re pleased that Monica is in the same realms as the Guardian and others (we knew that already). However, for us, she is far better than that. Her work is authentic and completely free of any corporate, state, or system capture – something other outlets cannot claim.

We’re proud and humbled to call Monica a ‘Canary’, and look forward to continuing to platform her globally-important work.

You can find out more about the SEAL Awards here.

Featured image via the Canary