 TVE Asia Pacific releases The Greenbelt Reports
8 December 2006
Profiling efforts to restore coral reefs, mangroves and sand dunes
across coastal Asia |
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TVE Asia Pacific’s latest educational TV series, The Greenbelt Reports, has just been released for broadcast, educational and civil society use worldwide.
This Asian series comprises 12 self-contained short films, each 5 minutes in duration, looking at challenges in conserving Asia’s coastal greenbelts – coral reefs, mangroves and sand dunes – that offer protection from disasters and many economic benefits to coastal communities. |
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These coastal ecosystems are now collectively called ‘greenbelts’. Their natural protective role against sea-based disasters and anticipated climate change impact has come into sharper focus since the Asian Tsunami of December 2004.
TVE Asia Pacific – a regional leader in communicating sustainable development using moving images – launched
The Greenbelt Reports in 2005. It 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. |
How to order The Greenbelt Reports
The Greenbelt Reports entire series (12 x 5 mins, totaling 60 mins of viewing) is available as a single compilation on VHS Video and DVD. Copies can now be ordered online from TVE Asia Pacific’s e-shop.
For obtaining broadcast masters, please contact TVE Asia Pacific’s Distribution Division: |
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The 12 stories in the first series have from coastal areas in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand – the four countries that were hardest hit by the Asian Tsunami. Using compelling images, interview clips and brief narration, each film tells the story of a community, activist group or researchers engaged in saving, restoring or regenerating a coastal greenbelt.
View titles and synopses of The Greenbelt Report – first series
As part of this series, TVE Asia Pacific has also produced a half-hour regional overview documentary titled The Greenbelt Reports: Armed by Nature. |
Click here for separate story on the documentary.
“These stories are not about the Asian Tsunami itself, but they reflect a key lesson driven home by the mega-disaster,” says Nalaka Gunawardene, Director and CEO of TVE Asia Pacific. “In this series, we try to amplify that message: the need to save or restore greenbelts across coastal Asia.”
Soon after the Asian tsunami of December 2004 hit coastal areas of South and Southeast Asia, relief workers and divers noticed that areas with mangrove forests, sand dunes or coral reefs had suffered considerably less damage -– both in terms of human lives and property. In the same locations, neighbouring areas without these natural barriers were impacted more heavily.
Scientists and environmentalists had been pointing this out for years: coastal vegetation and reefs act as a natural defence against ravages of the sea: while they cannot fully hold back tsunamis or cyclones, they can certainly reduce their impact. |
Save Greenbelts and save lives!
“The severity of this disaster could have been greatly lessened and much loss in human life and suffering could have been averted had healthy mangrove forests, coral reefs, sea grass beds and peat lands been conserved in a healthy state along these same now devastated coastlines.
“Instead, these vital protective buffers that nature provides against wind and wave had been foolishly degraded or removed for unsustainable developments such as industrial shrimp aquaculture, tourism and urban expansion into these fragile and now quite vulnerable coastal regions.”
- The Mangrove Action Project (MAP), in a statement shortly after the Asian Tsunami of December 2004 |
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“For many coastal areas of Asia, this message arrives too late,” says Gunawardene, who scripted and executive produced The Greenbelt Reports. “For decades, mangroves, coral reefs and sand dunes have been degraded or destroyed by population pressures, poverty and economic development activities.”
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For example, mangroves have been cleared on many Asian coasts and wetlands to set up shrimp farms or tourist hotels. In the five Asian countries that were hardest by the tsunami, some 1.5 million hectares were lost between 1980 and 2000 — a quarter of the region's total mangrove cover.
The value of natural barriers is not just in disaster mitigation. As sea levels rise, and as extreme weather events intensify due to global warming, these will become important elements in coping strategies for coastal countries and communities.
“The good news is that local communities |
| and activists are taking up these challenges with or without government and outside help,” Gunawardene says. “Their efforts offer some hope for the beleaguered greenbelts of Asia.” |
The Greenbelt Report first series is full of such examples:
- People in Tuntaset village in southern Thailand have found a decades-old law that allows local communities to manage their mangrove. Under this, they have transformed an area once devastated by charcoal and shrimp industries.
- The village of Paanama on Sri Lanka’s east coast was miraculously saved from the tsunami by a sand dune and mangrove forest. The people have now come together to conserve both greenbelts.
- For decades, the people of Jaring Halus managed their own mangrove forest using traditional methods. Now the government has asked them to co-manage mangroves in a nearby wildlife sanctuary -- a first for Indonesia.
The TV series will soon be backed by online and print material with further information, analysis and links. TVE Asia Pacific is offering this series to TV broadcasters, educational institutions and civil society groups anywhere in the world without any license fee or royalty charge. Only tape copying and dispatch costs will be recovered.
The series has been produced to international broadcast standards originally in English. It is entirely an effort by Asian TV professionals, from conceptualisation and filming to post-production. Stories were filmed by locally-based, internationally |
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| credentialed TV professionals under TVE Asia Pacific’s direction. It was post-produced at Video Image (Pvt) Limited in Colombo, Sri Lanka. |
The Greenbelt Reports was researched and produced in consultation with a large number of local, national and regional conservation organizations and research institutes. Among them: IUCN Asia, UNEP Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Mangrove Action Project, and Wetlands International.
The Greenbelt Reports has received the financial or technical advisory support from several conservation organisations, development agencies and media companies. These include the Japan Fund for Global Environment and the Green Coast Project, administered by IUCN Sri Lanka and financed by Oxfam Novib. The Nation Broadcasting Corporation of Thailand was a co-producing partner for the three stories filmed in Thailand.
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Established in 1996, TVE Asia Pacific is a regional not-for-profit organisation that uses television, video and Internet to raise awareness on environment, development, health and social justice issues.Governed by an international Board of Directors, TVE Asia Pacific operates as an editorially independent, journalistic organisation committed to public communication of development issues. It is funded by a multitude of development donors and corporate sponsors, none of who have control over its editorial content. |
Coming soon: new website!
A dedicated website promoting and showcasing The Greenbelt Reports will soon be online at: www.greenbelts.net
This will combine text, images and links on all stories covered in the first series, and also videostream the 5 min films. |
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Useful links
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