30 Sep 2018, 17:55

Rose-Anne
Clermont
Rose-Anne Clermont is an award-winning freelance journalist writing on migration and environmentalism. Her work has been published by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, Die Zeit, and U.S.-based media including The New York Times, NPR and USA Today. Rose-Anne is currently a freelance editor and trainer for media development projects focused on environmental conservation in East Africa.
Martha
Otwinowski
Martha managed the CLEW Journalism Network until February 2020. She developed network strategies and activities for energy reporters across the globe and helped launch the network platform in 2018. Prior to that, she was a correspondent at Index on Censorship, and also worked as policy researcher at a non-profit start-up.

Biomass, deforestation and EU-regulations: a Romanian-Polish cross border story

Bioenergy Climate & CO2 Gas International

Protected forest in Eastern Europe. Source: [Friedberg]/ Adobe Stock

Is biomass an attractive way to diversify fosssil fuel dependent countries' energy portfolios? Or the root of the deforestation in protected nature reservoirs? Two journalists from Romania and Poland teamed up and looked closely at the relationship between EU-regulations on biomass, deforestation, and the retail sector. Read up their published stories and find out what they learnt from working together on this border-crossing story.

Raul Cazan, freelance journalist as well as founder of the website 2 Celsius Network, and Jakub Wiech from Energetyka 24 worked together on this story supported by the first CLEW cross-border journalism grant. Find links to their articles below.

Rose-Anne spoke to Raul about how the cross-border approach made a difference to the story:

How did your process change, if at all, as soon as you crossed a border?
Once I got to Poland, I enjoyed a wider openness of researchers and people from academia. This helped our work a lot as we were able to frame our stories intellectually.

How did working in a cross-border collaboration deepen your understanding of your subject?
The network I founded, 2Celsius, works with cross-border collaborations between environmental journalists in Central and Eastern Europe. Given the complexity of the matter, my Polish counterpart had a massive role in enlightening me with regards to the intricacies of Polish energy policies, which revealed specific differences between the two post-communist countries.

Articles by Raul and Jakub

Raul Cazan's stories

'A recent history of biomass in Poland and Romania', 2 Celsius Network, 12 August 2018
'O istorie recentă a biomasei. Episodul 1', Adevarul, 01 August 2018, in Romanian
Mutlimedia glossary for 'A recent history of biomass in Poland and Romania', 2 Celsius Network, 15 July 2018

Jakub Wiech's stories

'Biomass – awaiting opportunity for Polish coal state?', Energetyka 24, 24 August 2018
'Biomasa – wciąż niewykorzystana szansa dla polskiego „coalstate” [ANALIZA]', Energetyka 24, 31 July 2018, in Polish