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Katie Surma

Reporter, Pittsburgh

Katie Surma is a reporter at Inside Climate News covering the rights of nature movement and international environmental justice. Her work has a strong focus on the intersection of human rights and the environment. Before joining ICN, she practiced law, specializing in commercial litigation. Her journalism work has been recognized by the Overseas Press Club, the Society of International Journalists, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and others. Katie has a master’s degree in investigative journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, an LLM in international rule of law and security from ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, a J.D. from Duquesne University, and was a History of Art and Architecture major at the University of Pittsburgh. Katie lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
  • @katiesurma.bsky.social
  • @Katie_Surma
  • [email protected]
Judge Tom Goldtooth addresses the 6th International Rights of Nature Tribunal on Feb. 28 in Toronto, Canada. Goldtooth noted that people around the world are starting to reevaluate colonial legal systems. Credit: Courtesy of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature

The Rights of Nature Become a Rallying Point Against an Ascendant Mining Industry

By Katie Surma

The Kayenta solar farm is seen on June 23, 2024 in Kayenta, Ariz. Credit: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Companies Tell Congressional Committee That Renewable Energy Is Needed to Keep Up With Demand

By Katie Surma

People do chores near the Rancheria River, which runs adjacent to the Cerrejon coal mine in Colombia. The Swiss mining giant Glencore has filed multiple ISDS claims against Colombia related to its investment in the mine. Credit: Lis Mary Machado/Anadolu via Getty Images

Biden Administration Reaches Deal Limiting Controversial Protections for Multinational Corporations

By Katie Surma, Nicholas Kusnetz

Fish and sharks swim around North Seymour Island in Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands on March 8, 2024. Credit: Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images

A Court Says Coastal Marine Ecosystems Have Intrinsic Value—and Legal Rights

By Katie Surma

Shop vendors protest a foreign consortium’s sharp increase in water rates in Cochabamba, Bolivia, on Feb. 5, 2000. The city’s water services were privatized in the late 1990s with encouragement from the World Bank. Credit: Gonzalo Espinoza/AFP via Getty Images

Nations Are Exiting a Secretive System That Protects Corporations. One Country’s Story Shows How Hard That Can Be

By Katie Surma, Nicholas Kusnetz

A view of the small Arctic town of Narsaq in southern Greenland, where Greenland Minerals arrived in 2007. Credit: Martin Zwick/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

How to Buy a Piece of a Lawsuit and Impoverish a Country

By Katie Surma, Nicholas Kusnetz

A view of the Snohomish River Estuary near Everett, Wash. Credit: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

A River in Washington State Now Has Enforceable Legal Rights

By Katie Surma

An Adelie penguin is seen on Horseshoe Island in Antarctica on Feb. 14. Credit: Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

Antarctica’s Fate Will Impact the World. Is It Time to Give The Region a Voice at Climate Talks?

By Katie Surma

Firefighters arrive to extinguish a wildfire on Sept. 24 in Concepcion, Bolivia. Credit: Rodrigo Urzagasti/AFP via Getty Images

Bolivia Has National Rights of Nature Laws. Why Haven’t They Been Enforced?

By Katie Surma

Honduras Próspera construyó un edificio de 14 pisos de usos mixtos al pie de una ladera anteriormente arbolada cerca de Crawfish Rock, un pueblo de pescadores de unos cientos de personas en la isla de Roatán. Crédito: Nicholas Kusnetz/Inside Climate News

En Honduras, los Libertarios y las Demandas Judiciales Podrían Quebrar el País

By Nicholas Kusnetz, Katie Surma

Honduran President Xiomara Castro delivers a speech to her supporters during a rally in Tegucigalpa on Sept. 14. Credit: Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images

‘Pure Greed’: A Legal System That Gives Corporations Special Rights Has Come for Honduras

By Nicholas Kusnetz, Katie Surma

From left: Sandra Silva, Jorge Nawel and Gonzalo Verges deliver a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission's Manhattan office on Sept. 26. Nawel's Indigenous Mapuche community in Argentina has been heavily impacted by fracking since the early 2010s. Credit: Keerti Gopal/Inside Climate News

Indigenous Group Asks SEC to Scrutinize Fracking Companies Operating in Argentina

By Katie Surma, Keerti Gopal

Environmental activists hold banners and chant slogans as they protest against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project on Aug. 26 in Kampala, Ugandan. Credit: Badru Katumba/AFP via Getty Images

In the Heart of Wall Street, Rights of Nature Activists Put the Fossil Fuel Era on Trial

By Katie Surma

Honduras Próspera built a 14-story mixed-use tower perched at the bottom of a once-forested hillside near Crawfish Rock, a fishing village of a few hundred people on the island of Roatán. Credit: Nicholas Kusnetz/Inside Climate News

In Honduras, Libertarians and Legal Claims Threaten to Bankrupt a Nation

By Nicholas Kusnetz, Katie Surma

People attend the burial of 14-year-old Colombian environmental activist Breiner David Cucuname, who was shot dead during a rural security patrol on Jan. 14, 2022 in the indigenous community of Las Delicias in Colombia’s Cauca Department. Credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images

‘Appalling Figures’: At Least Three Environmental Defenders Killed Per Week in 2023

By Katie Surma

Pedestrians cover their faces as smoke from wildfires in Canada has trigger air quality alerts in New York City on June 7, 2023. Credit: Michael Nagle/Xinhua via Getty Images

The Deteriorating Environment Is a Public Concern, but Americans Misunderstand Their Contribution to the Problem

By Katie Surma

Waorani Indigenous people protest in front of Ecuador's Energy Ministry on Aug. 20 to demand that the government respect the results of a referendum requiring an end to oil drilling in the Yasuni National Park. Credit: Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images

This Country Voted to Keep Oil in the Ground. Will It Happen?

By Katie Surma

Hugo Loss is an analyst with Brazil’s elite environmental enforcement agency IBAMA. Credit: Richard Ladkani/Amazônia Latitude

Lessons for Democracy From the Brazilian Amazon 

By Marcos Colón, Amazônia Latitude and Katie Surma, Inside Climate News

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