The Greenbelt Reports launched in Europe

TVE Asia Pacific’s latest environmental television series, The Greenbelt Reports, had its European premiere on 21 January 2007 at a high level gathering of environmentalists, officials and diplomats in Athens, Greece.

The premiere was part of an event titled ‘Biopolicy – In Search of Enlightened Leadership for Sustainable Development’, organised by the Biopolitics International Organisation (B.I.O.), a leading environmental organisation in Greece.

It was held at the Athens Hilton, and supported bythe Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece and itsDepartment of Hellenic Aid.

The Greenbelt Reports is a multi-media, Asian educational project to journalistically investigate and report on efforts to balance conservation needs of coastal greenbelts with socio-economic needs of coastal communities.

The 12 stories in the series were filmed in 2006 in coastal locations in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand – the four countries that were hardest hit by the Asian Tsunami of December 2004. Using compelling images, interview clips and narration, each film tells the story of an Asian community, activist group or researchers engaged in saving, restoring or regenerating a coastal greenbelt.

The series offers a quick status report on Asia’s coastal greenbelts – coral reefs, mangroves and sand dunes – that offer natural protection from disasters as well as many economic benefits to coastal communities.

The series was released in December 2006, and has since been received enthusiastically by broadcast, educational, research and civil society groups across Asia. It has already been carried on television channels in several countries, and more broadcasts are scheduled for 2007.

The Athens event is part of a series of regional and national launches for the series. It also marked the first collaboration between B.I.O. and TVE Asia Pacific, both dedicated to education on sustainable development.

“The environment is our neighbourhood. It is our home and affects us all,” said Evripides Stylianides, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, in a special message to the Athens meeting, read by Prodromos Markoulakis, Director of the Department of Hellenic Aid. “We must support and enhance all efforts for environmental protection, while, at the same time, raise public awareness of the importance of these issues.”

He added: “Public awareness and information concerning sustainable development, as well as environmental education and training, are valuable allies in the struggle for the protection of our planet.”

B.I.O. Founder and President Dr. Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis, a leading environmentalist and philosopher in Europe, said that the aim of this initiative was to promote biopolicy – a vision beyond sustainable development – to provide the necessary guidelines for every sector of society and every profession to engage in environmental appreciation and action.

She continued: “Time is running out, and bios (life) is threatened by a serious crisis in values….Our common enemy is the destruction of bios, and we need to join forces to mount an adequate response to the environmental crisis. The Asian tsunami catastrophe showed us that we cannot keep overlooking the warning signs. International collaboration is key in securing the well-being and survival of future generations.”

TVE Asia Pacific’s Director and CEO Nalaka Gunawardene, in a special message to the meeting, said: “Only a few coastal locations were naturally protected by a greenbelt when the Tsunami arrived five years later. As conservation organisations noted, many more lives could have been saved if we in Asia had taken better care of our coastal greenbelts. Instead, we have allowed our mangroves, coral reefs and sand dunes to be degraded or destroyed. This has happened due to a combination of factors, including population pressures, poverty and economic development activities.”

He added:“The Greenbelt Reports uses a dozen case studies to show that the only way to save Asia’s remaining coastal greenbelts is by balancing ecosystem conservation with survival needs of local people. As journalists, we investigated if this is feasible. We looked for evidence of where this is already happening, even on a small scale.”

On an optimistic note, Nalaka further said: “There is hope yet for saving our region’s remaining coastal greenbelts. It is a big challenge, but the knowledge, skill and enthusiasm for rising to that challenge are now available. This is knowledge-based, grassroots-level conservation that pools the efforts of governments, private sector, civil society groups, researchers and local communities. We show in our series how each party has a key role to play.”

Click here for full text of Nalaka Gunawardene’s remarks to the meeting

The meeting was then addressed by Ambassadors to Greece from India, Norway, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

“The media plays a very crucial role in environmental protection…they force governments to work to protect the environment. The media also magnify the role of NGOs and build up support for environmental protection.” - Rigoberto Tiglao, Ambassador of the Philippines at the European premiere of The Greenbelt Reports

Rigoberto Tiglao, Ambassador of the Philippines, said: “TVE Asia Pacific indeed answers to the need for all people on this planet to realise the urgency of environmental protection by listening very closely to Mother Earth and respecting her. As a result of the abuse of Mother Earth for the past decades in many parts of Asia, we have belatedly realised that the shields Mother Earth has given us against the dark side of nature’s forces have weakened and even vanished in some areas.

Ambassador Tiglao, himself a former journalist, added: “The Greenbelt Reports draw attention to the shields Mother Nature has given us and which man has been unwittingly demolishing. The media plays a very crucial role in environmental protection. The reason for this is that the media force governments to work to protect the environment. The media also magnify the role of NGOs and build up support for environmental protection.”

“Public awareness, concern, and articulation of environmental issues have been growing, and will continue to do so as education and communication improve. This is a very welcome trend,” said Dr. Bhaskar Balakrishnan, Ambassador of India. “Growth arising from the ongoing massive restructuring of India’s industry, infrastructure and agriculture sectors offers unprecedented opportunities for environmental conservation and improvement through green technologies and practices.”

Rodney Perera, Ambassador of Sri Lanka, said: “For Sri Lanka, the devastating consequences of the tsunami of 2004, represent a serious setback for the communities of the coastal regions, which are some of the country’s poorest. We have learned that environmental degradation as a result of overexploitation of resources for development, under various social pressures and consumption patters, has a cumulative effect of aggravating the vulnerability of the people.”

The Athens meeting was the first time that The Greenbelt Reports series was screened in Europe after its completion. In October 2006, the series – still in post-production stages -- was previewed by an international group of environmental journalists and communicators gathered in Rome, Italy. They were participants at the IV International Media Forum on the Protection of Nature, organised by the Greenaccord organisation and held at Villa Mondragone, Rome.

The Athens meeting also marked the formal launch of an environmental education project in post-Tsunami Sri Lanka where B.I.O. is cooperating with the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) Sri Lanka, a sister organisation of TVE Asia Pacific. Ms Thyagee de Zoysa, Project Officer of CEE Sri Lanka, was a speaker at the meeting (see box below).

Biopolitics International Organisation (B.I.O.) is an environmental NGO headquartered in Athens, Greece. Founded in 1985, B.I.O. promotes environmental education and awareness raising activities in 130 countries around the world. It has organised many international conferences, seminars, cultural and educational events, and has published more than 60 books on different aspects of environment and development. Most of B.I.O.’s publications, e-learning courses and activities are available from their website.