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Dear Reader,

Last week, I attended the Society of Environmental Journalists’ 36th conference in Chicago, hosted by the University of Illinois Chicago. 

It was my first conference in six years as a photojournalist and writer. Although I grew up in rural New Hampshire and didn’t travel much until I was 20, I spent most of my twenties abroad, in increasingly distant places. I now spend at least a third of my time in the field.

Stories on foreign interventions in natural resource extraction, community-based conservation, and climate adaptation are my bread and butter. I spend my days navigating flooded areas by boat, sitting in people’s homes to listen to how their lives and relationships are shifting with the natural world, and trekking through arid regions.

I am currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. Working independently from the African continent can be isolating, with limited proximity to colleagues and others in the industry. While I’m fortunate to have a close group of journalism friends in Nairobi for support, the work itself often remains solitary. I have met only a handful of editors in person.

Given the limited attention paid to non-American news, I feel a personal mandate to report it for American and European publications. At the same time, I recognise the need to connect with industry peers in the U.S. to learn from their experiences, understand their perspectives, and gauge their views on international coverage.

The SEJ conference helped meet that need. A panel on centring Indigenous narratives in climate journalism especially resonated. It echoed my experience as a foreign correspondent — from editorial pressure to follow trending narratives and questions of who gets to tell which stories, to the alchemy of meaningfully decolonising narratives and approaching stories with curiosity rather than judgement.

As one of three panelists on the session “Making Global Environmental Stories Matter to the U.S. Audiences in the Trump Era,” I had the opportunity to share my experiences as The Xylom’s Editor-at-Large. Like many nonprofit newsrooms, The Xylom has been affected by a broader funding squeeze under Trump’s second term, which has seen cuts to public media, international broadcasting, and research funding ecosystems. 

However, thanks to readers like you who support us regularly, The Xylom has been able to produce stories — from Pakistan to Zimbabwe to Cambodia — that take centre stage in global environmental journalism.

At a time when America is turning inward to protect its own bottom line amid wars and shifting economic decisions, it is more important than ever to recognise the interconnectedness of our world. Insularity is an illusion. Refusing to understand how global shocks affect the American economy will not shield us from what lies ahead, nor lessen the suffering unfolding across the world.

Warmly,
Kang-Chun Cheng
Editor-at-Large

♨️ HOT OFF THE PRESSES:
India’s Electoral System is Melting Under Extreme Heat

Indian elections unfold in dangerously hot conditions that are not treated as a public health risk — even as they claim lives.

An analysis of 20 suspected heat deaths recorded in the summers of 2024 & 2025 found that 17 occurred when the Universal Thermal Climate Index exceeded 38 C.

This article is a collaboration between The Xylom and Dialogue Earth. Read more here.

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🍑 A SOUTHERN FLAIR

• FLORIDA — Who Killed the Florida Orange? (Alexander Sammon, Slate)

  “Three, four years ago, the juice was 80 per cent from Florida,” says Weston Johnson, of the Coca-Cola Company, which owns Minute Maid. “Now we’re 20 per cent Florida.”

• GEORGIA — Georgia’s ACA enrollment plunges, raising concerns for rural hospitals (Ariel Hart, The Current)

  “A larger uninsured population means that hospitals have to provide more uncompensated care. And we also know that people who are uninsured are more likely to delay or forgo medicare care…they may have severe needs by the time they actually see a doctor,” says Emma Wager, a senior policy analyst on the ACA at the health research nonprofit KFF. 

• TOM GREEN COUNTY, Texas — Low-Producing Oil Wells in Texas Cause Headaches for Landowners (Story by Martha Pskowski; photos by Paul Ratje, Inside Climate News)

  “They made a big mess of it,” says Jackie Chesnutt, a retired engineer, showing photos of spills of oil and produced water, a hazardous byproduct of drilling. Chesnutt fears the spills could contaminate her groundwater and has paid to get her water tested multiple times.

  “We have worked our asses off to make this place wonderful and beautiful,” she said. “I refuse to accept that the next person is going to have this happen to them.”

• LOUISIANA — Judges overseeing Louisiana's landmark oil cases have financial stakes in defendants (Garrett Hazelwood, New Orleans Public Radio, Floodlight and Type Investigations, with support from the H.D. Lloyd Fund for Investigative Journalism, in collaboration with Verite News)

  “To the extent they're following the rules, they can't really be faulted,” says Charles Geyh, a professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and an expert in judicial disqualification. “But from a systemic standpoint, do you really want judges to be drawn from a pool of people who have a stake in the industry?”

🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING

• CHILE — A Cactus in Court (Roman Goergen, The Revelator)

  “A lot happens via Facebook and Instagram,” says botanist Pablo Guerrero of the Universidad de Concepción. “Buyers can choose the plants themselves. Some sellers even stream live videos from the desert and ask which plants they should dig up.”

• The Smithsonian Curator Who Loved Frogs (Ashley D’Souza, Smithsonian Magazine)

  “In her research, Cochran focused on amphibians and reptiles in the West Indies and South America. By the time of her death, she had published 90 taxonomic papers and named nearly 100 new species and six new genera,” writes Ashley D’Souza

• Whistleblower says Trump officials thought USAID did ‘just abortions,’ asked for ‘Barney-style’ slides before gutting agency, per new book (Marisa Kabas, The Handbasket)

  “Disappointed, though not surprised, I began to describe various life- saving components of USAID’s global health portfolio, highlighting how we prepare for and respond to emerging pandemic threats; support the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV; and immunize millions of children from the deadliest childhood diseases. I spoke for about five minutes, focusing primarily on our infectious diseases work and hoping to keep the attention of people who seemed to have no experience—or interest—in global health,” writes Nicholas Enrich, then-USAID’s acting assistant administrator for global health.

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