Illustrative Image: Earth. (Image: Istock) | Plant and magnifying glass. (Image: Freepik) | (By Daniella Lee Ming Yesca) 
This week, we’re excited to announce the birth of Maverick Earth – an expanded relaunch of Our Burning Planet that will take you both wider and deeper into issues of true planetary significance.
Environmental journalism is about far more than isolated events. It’s about identifying emerging patterns and long-term shifts. Conventional news reporting is often reactive, relying largely – sometimes entirely – on information supplied by institutions such as governments, politicians, police or corporations. Its role is to reflect the world as it appears to be.
Environmental journalism is investigative and works differently. It often explores things that have not yet happened but are about to happen, or seeks to protect or expose the dangers to what should never have been under threat in the first place.
It reveals matters that are often hidden – sometimes deliberately by those in power, sometimes unintentionally, buried beneath a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances that obscure real understanding.
This kind of journalism demands patience and persistence. It’s not a regurgitation of a press release or social media post. It involves careful digging that uncovers ground-shifting information nobody realised was there – and then changes how we see and interact with the world once it comes to light.
Often, it exposes truths hiding in plain sight, a phenomenon sometimes described as “broken leg” awareness: you rarely notice others who limp unless you’ve had a broken leg yourself. In general, we don’t notice phenomena unless we’re already sensitive to them.
Our team of five specialised journalists (the largest permanent-staff environmental team in southern Africa) regularly tackles issues that few take on – until we write about them. Then they become mainstream. Stories overlooked, forgotten or hidden – our job is to identify the important issues you need to know to navigate life and live with the natural world around us.
We write out of deep concern for how humans are interacting with the world around us. We aim to make complex issues clearer and more accessible, while holding to account those whose cruelty, greed or indifference threatens life on Earth – including our own species.
Our mantra for Maverick Earth is simple: fewer stories, deeper investigations, greater insight. We believe our responsibility is to uncover the truth so that the world can change for the better.
This week, we set sail on a 12-part series, Troubled Waters: Inside South Africa’s Fishing Industry – a deep dive into the currents shaping life at sea. From corporate boardrooms to weather-beaten harbours, from scientists and skippers to so-called poachers, we explore who’s catching what, who’s cashing in and who’s left high and dry. Expect salt, politics, courage and more than a little chaos. The sea has stories – and we’re here to listen.
We’re also launching an occasional series, Notes from a Small Planet, which will introduce the thinkers, activists, scientists and cultural figures shaping ecological consciousness today. These thoughtful pieces will uncover deeper layers of meaning – intellectual, ethical and cultural – within ecology and sustainability.
In this work we embrace our new partner and supporter, The Sophia Foundation, which has assisted in the reimagining and deepening of the writing we do.
So, welcome to Maverick Earth. We’re your finger on the heartbeat of our beautiful – and only – planet. DM
