Marta Vidal

Marta Vidal (Portugal) is an independent journalist, writer and producer focusing on social and environmental justice across the Mediterranean.

Marta Vidal is an endlessly curious, semi-nomadic story hunter-gatherer (of the plant-based type). She usually moves around the Mediterranean hunting for information about inequality, oppression and environmental degradation, and gathering stories about social justice, resistance, dignity and restoration.

She has worked with non-profit organisations and as an independent journalist reporting from Portugal, the Balkans, and the Levant. Her work has been published by The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, BBC, Foreign Policy, and others, and has been supported by the IWMF and Journalismfund Europe.

Vidal's main goal is to tell stories that foster solidarity and engagement. She's interested in emphasising how injustice that happens to someone else, somewhere else, affects everyone. Because "Everywhere is a here, isn't it?"

Basic information

Name

Marta Vidal

Title

Journalist

Expertise

Environmental and social justice across the Mediterranean

Country

Portugal

City

Porto

Marta Vidal

Website

marta-vidal.com

Links

Supported projects

They make a desert and call it profit

Agriculture
Environment
Exploitation

HUELVA - Across the southern Iberian Peninsula, plastic greenhouses stretch to the horizon where rain-fed olives, wheat and grapes were traditionally grown. Spain and Portugal are Europe’s main producers of water-intensive berries. But the region is also one of the continent’s driest areas, where droughts are becoming more frequent. Reports have warned Europe’s fruit garden is in danger of becoming a desert before the end of the century.

Mentor for

The Not-So-Sunny Side of Sunscreen

Environment

MAR MENOR/AMALFI - Since their invention in the 1940s, modern sunscreens have become an essential vacation item, ubiquitous on beaches around the globe. However, after decades of mixing with the world’s seas and oceans via the lathered skin of tourists and sunbathers, the damage caused to sub-aquatic ecosystems by sunscreen ingredients has started to surface. This investigation reveals how sunscreen manufacturers are contaminating Mediterranean waters in Spain's Mar Manor and Italy's Amalfi Coast.