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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]
A person stands on a dock on Lake Virginia in Orlando. Credit: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Florida Judge Asked to Recognize the Legal Rights of Five Waterways Outside Orlando

By Katie Surma

Rangers from Kahuzi-Biega National Park visit the devastated areas of the park on September 30, 2019. Credit: Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty Images

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Unintended Consequences of ‘Fortress Conservation’

By Katie Surma

Aerial view of a tailings dam-enbankment used to store byproducts of mining copper for the Minera Valle Central mining company, in Rancagua, Chile on May 31, 2019. Credit: Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images

Environmentalists in Chile Are Hoping to Replace the Country’s Pinochet-Era Legal Framework With an ‘Ecological Constitution’

By Katie Surma

Indigenous Land Rights Are Critical to Realizing Goals of the Paris Climate Accord, a New Study Finds

By Katie Surma

Woolly monkey. Credit: Evgenia Kononova

Ecuador’s High Court Rules That Wild Animals Have Legal Rights

By Katie Surma

People run for cover in front of a burning house during shelling in the city of Irpin, outside Kyiv, on March 4, 2022. Credit: Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images

Activists Deplore the Human Toll and Environmental Devastation from Russia’s Unprovoked War of Aggression in Ukraine

By Katie Surma

Tourists snorkel at a coral reef in Portobelo, Colon province, Panama in 2021. Reefs there have been damaged by climate change and pollution. Credit: Luis ACOSTA / AFP via Getty Images.

Panama Enacts a Rights of Nature Law, Guaranteeing the Natural World’s ‘Right to Exist, Persist and Regenerate’

By Katie Surma

Aerial view of Brazilian mining multinational Vale at the Corrego do Feijao mine in Brumadinho, Belo Horizonte's metropolitan region, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, on Dec. 17, 2019. Credit: Douglas Magno/AFP via Getty Images

Backed by International Investors, Mining Companies Line Up to Expand in or Near the Amazon’s Indigenous Territories

By Katie Surma

Toreadora lake in Cajas National Park in the highlands of Ecuador. Credit: Martha Barreno /VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Can Rights of Nature Laws Make a Difference? In Ecuador, They Already Are

By Katie Surma

Maasai homes in in Tanzania. Credit: Roger de la Harpe/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Conservation has a Human Rights Problem. Can the New UN Biodiversity Plan Solve it? 

By Katie Surma

A young fingerling Chinook salmon leaps out of the water on May 16, 2018 in Half Moon Bay, California. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In the Latest Rights of Nature Case, a Tribe Is Suing Seattle on Behalf of Salmon in the Skagit River

By Katie Surma

Human rights lawyer Philippe Sands speaks at AOL Studios In New York on Nov. 6, 2015 in New York City. Credit: John Lamparski/WireImage

The Essential Advocate, Philippe Sands Makes the Case for a New International Crime Called Ecocide

By Katie Surma

A Plea to Make Widespread Environmental Damage an International Crime Takes Center Stage at The Hague

By Katie Surma

View from the observation tower of rising mist from the rain forest canopy in the rain forest near La Selva Lodge near Coca, Ecuador. Credit: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

Ecuador’s High Court Affirms Constitutional Protections for the Rights of Nature in a Landmark Decision

By Katie Surma

Aerial scenes from the Northern Amazon from the town of Iqitos to the Amazon oil town of Trompederos, Peru, June 11, 2007. Credit: Brent Stirton/Getty Images

Indigenous Women in Peru Seek to Turn the Tables on Big Oil, Asserting ‘Rights of Nature’ to Fight Epic Spills

By Katie Surma

Sections of the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline on the construction site on the White Earth Nation Reservation near Wauburn, Minnesota in June 2021. Credit: Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images

To Stop Line 3 Across Minnesota, an Indigenous Tribe Is Asserting the Legal Rights of Wild Rice

By Katie Surma

Protesters hold banners and placards as they participate in a protest march during a global climate strike, part of the 'Fridays for Future' movement in New Delhi. Credit: Manish Rajput/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The UN’s Top Human Rights Panel Votes to Recognize the Right to a Clean and Sustainable Environment

By Katie Surma

Is it Time for the World Court to Weigh in on Climate Change?

By Katie Surma

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