The Intercept Brasil turns one year old today. On our launch date of August 2 of last year, we explained our purposes and objectives by observing that “there is a hunger among Brazilians for alternative forms of reporting.” That hunger is grounded in the grim reality that the country “has long been dominated by a tiny number of powerful media institutions, almost all of which supported the 1964 coup and the subsequent 21-year brutal right-wing military dictatorship that followed, and which are still owned by the same handful of extremely rich families responsible for that history.”

We viewed our mission as working to strengthen Brazil’s talented but under-resourced independent journalism, something no democracy can thrive without. We were determined to give a platform to voices, perspectives, and critical events that went deliberately ignored and excluded by the country’s largest media outlets. As we put it last August: “In a remarkably diverse and pluralistic country, [the media’s] ownership homogeneity has resulted in a media landscape that stifles both diversity and plurality of viewpoints.”

And central to our mission was to bring this journalism to all parts of Brazil, as well as using our status as an international news outlet to publish our journalism in both Portuguese and English and thus highlight our Brazil reporting internationally. We also vowed to use our expertise in reporting on large leaks to help foster a climate of source protection and transparency through whistleblowing.

After a year in operation, we view this mission as more vital than ever, and are more excited than ever at the opportunities to work alongside other independent outlets to contribute to the spirit of independent journalism that has been lacking in Brazil for so long. As the country’s political and economic crises deepen, and as the 2018 presidential election presents a wide range of possibilities from the exciting to the genuinely frightening, the need for aggressive, adversarial and truly independent journalism will be greater than ever.

We are proud of the talented and diverse team of reporters, editors and columnists we have assembled in just one year. And they have produced a great deal of exclusive, high-impact investigations and insightful analysis that has helped shape the news cycle, expose high-level corruption and compel reforms.

Just last week, our investigation of the finances of House Speaker Rodrigo Maia, next in line to the presidency, forced him to explain how he ended up owning offices used by Odebrecht and the bank BTG Pactual that were previously undisclosed. In May, our exposé of a “tourist” slave plantation by Cecília Olliveira led to reform measures memorialized in a agreement between the planation and the Public Ministry.

Thanks entirely to original reporting by The Intercept Brasil in January, the Public Ministry ordered the federal government to pay R$10 million in compensation to an indigenous tribe that was violently raided by the Federal Police in 2012. The article is part of a 14-part series produced in partnership with the US-based environmental news site Mongabay