Environment
Spreading the Message
Since 1999 SPREP and UNESCO have run a series of national workshops to try and raise the standard of environment reporting.
Anyone with an interest in the news would have observed that unlike politics, business and sport, environmental issues are a relatively new development across the news.
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Twenty years ago one would have been hard pressed to find any regional media running regular columns or programmes on the environment. Since then the transition of the environment per se into a frontline global issue has been remarkable. The massive international media coverage the United States has received over its current stance on the Kyoto Protocol is a recent example.
I know some may contend that this is the result of never before have we been faced with the environmental challenges now confronting us. But this only partly explains the reasons.
In the media world, stories about environmental issues are often treated as "soft news" by decisionmakers in newsrooms. Until fairly recently its science based orientation meant that environmental stories were amongst the first to be bumped off the front pages by more reader friendly pieces on political rows, business frauds, violence and increasingly tales of the bizarre.
Since 1999 environment media workshops have been conducted in Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Fiji and Marshall Islands. The latest workshop was in Papua New Guinea in March 2001.
Participants at the Papua New Guinea workshop were from government and non-government media, plus environmental communicators and industry representatives.
With over 80 percent of the region's landmass, 4.5 million people and 875 languages, Papua New Guinea is home to an astounding diversity of cultures, fauna, flora and minerals.
During one of the workshop seminars, the PNG Office of Environment and Conservation (OEC), explained how waste paralleled the growth of urban and industrial activity.
Consumerism has been the catalyst for a huge increase in household and industrial wastes, particular non-biodegradable kinds such as plastics. But changing public perceptions and attitudes to waste, its treatment and disposal is the greatest challenge.
This is especially so for a country where literacy and education of the majority are low and where old habits are hard to change, the report stated. Despite the department's best intention to inform and educate it would be fair to say that many Environment Departments across the region face similar obstacle-laden scenarios. The very real needs of a country's environment are too often treated as the poor cousins by its Treasury and national planning officials, who do not comprehend that short term-economic gains can become terminal losses, if the value of the environment is given a low priority or ignored.
To determine the size of Port Moresby's waste problem, SPREP commissioned a research group to undertake a waste characterisation study of the capital. The study found that 413,000 tons of garbage is being dumped over 219,000 square metres of land per year, enough to cover three international size football pitches. In response, the government has gone on the offensive over waste. Last year a nationwide "Litter Free PNG" campaign was launched that involved schools from throughout the country, and the media. Sponsorship came from the OEC, SPREP/EU, industry and the media.
Environmental media plays a pivotal role in turning the situation around by providing information, and awareness about available options. The job is never easy. Environment issues call for a basic understanding of scientific matters that journalists whose education and training is overwhelmingly in the arts, do not readily possess.
The timing of this year's workshop has helped take the learning process a step further. Although the PNG media industry has the reputation for being amongst the best in the Pacific, judging by the response our trainers received, the standards for environment reporting is still being defined across the region.
For the record, it is a credit to the overall standard of journalism now on tap, that for the first time SPREP/UNESCO were able to have all Pacific islands trainers taking their skills to our people. The results were commendable.
SPREP believes a foundation is now being established on how to provide villages, schools and the general public, with the information they need to protect and conserve something they know to be of very real value to them. Of course, there is still a fair way to go before environment information and news is accorded the importance it deserves. I am, however, thankful that UNESCO has indicated its willingness to assist with more regional workshops that I anticipate will provide wider and better environment media coverage, and services in the future.
