Q&A: Ritwika Mitra’s Reporting on Gender Shows Climate Change’s Fingerprints

Oct 24, 2023 | Covering Climate Now
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For the past couple of years, freelance journalist Ritwika Mitra has focused much of her work on communities at the “front lines” of the climate emergency in her native India, reporting closely on the human impacts of this accelerating crisis. In particular, she has reported from the Sundarbans, a large coastal region stretching across parts of West Bengal, in India, and Bangladesh. The region has suffered flooding, river erosion, soil salinization—all the result of rising seas in the Bay of Bengal—and, perhaps worst of all, intensifying cyclones.

Mitra covers the consequences for the people of the Sundarbans, in particular women and children—and she was among this year’s finalists for the Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards. CCNow spoke recently with Mitra about the dire long-term consequences of disasters, her decision to go freelance, and the relevance of labels in earning trust with communities. The conversation, with CCNow deputy director Andrew McCormick, has been edited for length and clarity.