Supported projects

DAKHLA – Large-scale resorts and infrastructure projects, often backed by European investment, are transforming fragile desert and coastal ecosystems. What is the real environmental impact of mass tourism development promoted by Morocco in Western Sahara?

RIJEKA / ULOG – Who decides how much damage to rivers is acceptable for electricity production? This cross-border investigation finds that rom the Alps to the Adriatic, the minimum ecological flows are patchy, rarely monitored, and often ignored.

DIBËR / ŠIPOVO – In Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, communities are challenging small hydropower projects. The cross-border investigation documents disputed permits, prolonged court proceedings, contested construction and growing pressure on some of Europe’s last near-natural rivers.

BUDAPEST / BUCHAREST- Electric fences across Romania and Hungary are seen as a way to protect livestock and property from wildlife. But what happens when these barriers disrupt the movement of wild animals, block ecological corridors and increase the risk of encounters between wildlife and people?

LUXEMBOURG / RUSSIA - This investigation traces the international networks of companies, traders, vessel owners and insurers connected to Russia's largest coal mine.

OSTIA / VALENCIA - When a young sperm whale’s carcass washed ashore near Rome, its scars revealed how it died: in a vessel strike. The animal was just one of the many fin and sperm whales killed by maritime traffic in the busy Mediterranean Sea.

NOVA KAKHOVKA - Nearly two years after the sinking of two Russian tankers in the Kerch Strait, authorities in the Krasnodar Krai reported that the cleanup operations had been completed. However, this statement merely meant that Russian agencies had ceased their efforts to collect the fuel oil, while ...

ALIAGA / ALANG / CHITTAGONG - When Europe’s ships become obsolete, they are sent to India, Bangladesh and Turkey, where they fetch the highest prices for their scrap metal. Picked apart by poorly paid workers, these vessels take a deadly toll on people and the environment. This investigation ...

LONDON – Extreme heat is not just an environmental issue, but a major and growing public health crisis. By identifying the impact at city level, this cross-border project makes the consequences of climate change tangible and helps inform public debate and action.

VIGO / TAIPEI - Together, Spain and Taiwan account for almost two-thirds of the world’s reported blue shark catch, turning one of the ocean’s most widely distributed predators into a global commodity.

BUENOS AIRES - Vaca Muerta is a vast area of Argentine Patagonia, home to the world’s second-largest reserve of unconventional natural gas and the fourth-largest reserve of unconventional oil. In 2012, the Argentine government began investing in the region, with the stated aim of using these ...

WALANDAWE - A year-long investigation traces nickel from deforested forests and Indigenous land in Sulawesi through China’s battery industry to Volkswagen’s electric cars in Europe, exposing the hidden environmental cost of the green transition.

CROATIA / ITALY - This investigation looks at how beaches in Italy and Croatia continue to receive the prestigious Blue Flag certification despite persistent failures to comply with EU wastewater treatment standards.

BUDAPEST - Flavescence dorée, a devastating grapevine disease, is spreading across Central Europe, threatening vineyards and the livelihoods of winegrowers.

SAINT PETERSBURG / ALESSANDRIA - Chemicals made in Russia keep crossing the EU to reach an Italian plant, despite the war in Ukraine and years of sanctions. Middlemen in Germany and Israel, trucks through Estonia and a price that rose eightfold kept the supply going.

BRUSSELS - Despite EU water laws, this summer the drinking water supply system showed serious cracks in several regions in the European Union. Good water governance and its enforcement are essential to safeguard the access to clean drinking water on our continent. The European Commission is stepping ...

ONLINE / BOLOGNA - The first edition of FACTA Lab: Environment Uncovered is now open. This free training programme focuses on developing rigorous, evidence-based environmental investigations that respond to the needs of communities, through connecting journalism, science and civil society.

GALICIA / SANTAREM - A cross-border investigation into how eucalyptus expansion, rural abandonment, economic dependence and difficulties in enforcing forestry rules interact with wildfire risk.

ONLINE – Through this training, Bellingcat seeks to further empower investigative journalists in the field of environmental and wildlife reporting from a local to international level.

LUANDA - A cross-border investigation reveals European, British and US oil giants have been routinely spilling oil in Angola’s oceans for 13 years, leaving residents ill and unable to eat. Multiple complaints have been ignored, while fishermen are asked to clean up under ‘voluntary work agreements’.

PUERTOLLANO / VENICE / NAPAJEDLA / MUNICH -Sold as a green industrial revolution, Europe's hydrogen rollout is increasingly a story about lobbying, import dependency and who controls the pipes.

BUCHAREST / SARAJEVO - Mega hydropower projects conceived decades ago during the communist era are now being resumed and developed, ignoring current priorities for water, biodiversity protection, and public spending.

BRUSSELS / RIBERALTA - This investigation examines the European frontier of green finance: the carbon credit market is targeting Bolivia’s indigenous territories, whose rights are at risk of being trampled on. One controversial project shows the dangers involved to frontline communities.

ATYRAU - As the EU deepens its energy partnership with Kazakhstan, this investigation goes to the source of the oil that helps power European markets. Reporting from Atyrau, Kazakhstan's oil capital, it explores the social and environmental costs of decades of oil extraction.

ELENITE/MAMAIA - Mutilated by political decisions that generate huge profits for certain companies, the Romanian and Bulgarian beaches on the Black Sea have become graveyards for tourists who are left at the mercy of natural phenomena exacerbated by the authorities.

RUŽOMBEROK - As demand for paper packaging grows, pressure on Europe’s forests increases. An investigation into Mondi SCP in Slovakia reveals the source of its wood and raises questions about the transparency of logging practices and the future of protected forests.

VALLETTA / LISBON / NICOSIA - In Southern Europe, water scarcity demands public investment and raises groundwater prices, but who profits? A three-country investigation identifies commercial actors with disproportionate water privileges in the EU’s most water-scarce countries: Malta, Cyprus & ...

BRUSSELS / MADRID / PARIS – On air and under pressure, meteorologists around the world are becoming unwitting harbingers of doom as extreme weather grows ever more severe. Faced with censorship, denial and an emotional toll, they must confront a haunting question beneath an ever-darkening sky: how ...

VYHIV / GYE-SUR-SEINE - This investigation uncovers the hidden journey of charcoal, from unpermitted kilns in Ukraine to supermarket shelves across Europe, and the alleged illegal practices behind a market with weak traceability.

RRJOLL - From Rrjoll to Himarë, this investigation exposes how Albania's tourism model is driving the transformation of protected areas into luxury “resorts”, enabled by legal reforms and government decisions that favour private interests over environmental protection.