An African NPO combines traditional investigative reporting techniques with data analysis and geo-mapping to help track eco-offences. South Africa has laws and processes that cater for public participation in the environmental impact assessments (EIAs) needed before most new developments can go ahead, including mining. The problem is that many local residents affected by these developments struggle to access critical information about what is happening – often they have to read about them in small type on notices pinned to fences and trees, or in obfuscated newspaper advertisements. At an Editors’ Lab Hackathon in 2013, a team from Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental…
