Opinion
Sounding Out The Message
At SPREP, the amount of science-based environmental information generated every year poses the question, as to the best way it can be disseminated from a language many find alien, into a format that has a better chance of being more readily understood.
I would be the first to agree, that the many reports that are produced here each year would hardly make for enjoyable leisure time reading. Chock full of scientific terms, tables, and figures seemingly from another planet, they often plunge the reader into a labyrinth of academia, from which few could endure through to the final page.
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At times what is needed is a better means to package that information to audiences; whereby the most mundane, complex and disorientating information is transformed into a mode of communication accessible to all Pacific islanders and others.
While the Pacific region trails behind almost all others when it comes to awareness and the use of hi-tech systems, not to mention the capital outlay required to obtain such equipment and training, all is not lost. For when it comes to delivering the environmental message with immediacy, clarity and a captive audience in mind, our most potent means is also one of the oldest but most effective. Radio.
With that rationale in mind, SPREP together with our friends at UNESCO, recently held a regional training workshop at our Training and Education Centre, for some of the Pacific's most talented radio journalists.
This project on media and the environment was launched in 1999 in Samoa. This was followed by five national workshops in Tonga, Fiji, the Cook Islands, the Marshall Islands, then Papua New Guinea last year. With this being the final in the series, it was agreed that focusing on radio, with its dominance as the mass communications medium in our part of the world, would be a fitting way to wind up the project.
Invitations were sent and accepted from the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. There was also one added dimension here, in that these journalists were selected, both for their ability as news reporters and for their potential to act as trainers. They were tasked with turning out several environment programmes on issues surrounding oil recycling and composting.
In assisting us to meet this end, we were fortunate to have some of the best radio trainers in the region. Radio specialist Yaminiasi Gaunavou, from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community Regional Media Centre, is a well-known expert in this field, along with Johnson Honimae, the general manager of the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation and president of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), were team leaders. Joining them from the Australian National University was Rod Lamberts, a science communications expert.
Quality trainers, good facilities and committed journalists ensured that the workshop was a worthwhile event. Suffice to say, the produced programmes were done with a sizeable injection of skill, flair and talent. No doubt the training styles the participants witnessed, will again prove useful when passing on skills to their fellow workers back home.
One interesting point that emerged was the status of news reporting across a number of our island states. Several delegates explained there were now either stringent measures in place, or being proposed by their employers; restricting access to the public receiving full coverage, not only of the environment, but other issues as well.
If so, then I suggest that perhaps it would be in our best regional interest if this were not the case. The participants recommended that further workshops be held in the future and that other regional organizations become involved.
However, our work in this important field is ongoing. Looking ahead to 2003, PINA will be holding their biennial conference here in Samoa. The theme is "Culture, Media and the Environment". I believe this theme is both timely and relevant. Our island communities have always nurtured their environment, recognizing its spiritual, cultural as well as material importance. To actively address this situation, people need information.
So we look forward to assisting PINA with their conference, and further strengthening our relations with the region's media.
I sincerely thank UNESCO, the International Programme for Development of Communication (IPDC), who funded the project, for collaborating with SPREP, and bringing it to a successful conclusion.
I also wish to congratulate the workshop journalists for their awareness of the pivotal role they play in sounding out the message in the interests of our environment. May the airwaves rise to meet them.
Tamari'i Tutangata is the director of the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) based in Apia.
