Tag Archive for: Journalists

AMWAJ Forum 2020. Energy and water: challanges of the Mediterranean

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AMWAJ (A Mediterranean Water And Journalism) is a platform that is focused on tackling water scarcity and energy challenges while identifying young talent that help provide innovative game-changing solutions. AMWAJ is also a regional incubator and facilitator for sustainable development that encourages an exchange of ideas and knowledge.

Through partnerships with leading organizations across the Mediterranean region, it is positioned to act as a network of networks in the water and energy sector. It creates links between researchers, media experts, industry and institutions, believing in interdisciplinary collaboration, institutional cooperation and intercultural communication. These are the bases of a future Euro-Mediterranean community.

AMWAJ provides enabling conditions for media and researchers to connect, empowering a new generation of reporters, experts and decision-makers with the knowledge and skills to communicate accurately and effectively the value of water and energy in society and to constructively policy-making through articles, photo essays, videos, exhibitions, reports, events, training, and other multimedia material. It bridges the gap between science, policy-making and society and contributes to the development of new discourses in the domain of the environment to accelerate sustainable development around the Mediterranean region.

It organizes a bi-annual conference bringing together research, media and policy that brings together a movement of hundreds of young professional journalists, researchers and entrepreneurs from the shared geographic space of the 43 countries that comprise the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM).

AMWAJ forum started under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Hassan of Jordan and PepsiCo MENA in 2016 and travsersed the Mediterranean in 2018 to Barcelona with the Government of Catalonia, the European Investment Bank and other partners.

The next edition of AMWAJ Forum ( co-organized by the Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation LCEC in partnering with the World Energy Week) will be in Sin el-Fil, Beirut, from 7 – 9 October 2020.

The 2020 edition will catalyse knowledge exchange, promote technical discussions and strengthen partnerships and networks amongst the Mediterranean water, energy and sustainability communities. It will serve as a platform for media, researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs and civil society from around the Mediterranean to collaborate and exchange around these key regional topics. The forum’s ultimate objective is to communicate the value of water and energy in society accurately and effectively, while constructively influencing policy-making in these fields. All sessions will be moderated by Mediterranean journalists or representatives from communication offices.

 

Journalism Update Course for Sustainability, 100% online

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The Journalism Update Course for Sustainability is organised by CapacitaRSE – a pioneering center for teaching sustainability in Latin America – with the experience of 30 journalists or communicators (bloggers, podcasters or others) active in the field in the Spanish-speaking world.
Participating journalists will be able to review 100% online updated content on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Circular Economy and learn to interpret sustainability instruments such as reports and stock indexes, hand in hand with specialized teachers, between April 6 and 17 2020.

«Policies such as the Sustainable Development Goals govern the current response of the United Nations System to global causes such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We conceived this course as an opportunity to promote sustainable transformation and collective consciousness, a process in which journalists are key agents» says Estefanía Salazar, coordinator of the course.
The course will provide digital signature certification issued by CapacitaRSE in the State of Florida (USA) where it has its regional headquarters.

Form of participation:  4 modules within Google Classroom with two virtual question and answer sessions and delivery of a final report

Registration form and cost: Those interested can apply until April 5, 2020 at this link

Course dates: April 6 to April 17, 2020 (2 weeks)

For more information: Estefanía Salazar – e.salazar@clasesderse.com.ar
Twitter: @CapacitaRSE // Instagram: @cursosderse

Media Credentials for Journalists at WEEC2019

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Press and Media are warmly welcome to attend the 10th World Environmental Education Congress in Bangkok (3-7 November 2019). In order to attend as press you need to submit an official press ID specifying media affinity to media@weecnetwork.org  and wait for an acceptance letter from the Organizing Committee in order to register as media. Fill the press accreditation form and send it to media@weecnetwork.org
Our  wish is for a distribution of press geographically and according to media type.

Journalists, including photographers, are required to submit one of the following:

  • A letter of assignment on the letterhead of the news organization being represented
  • Copies of 2 bylined environmental/science articles (or credited photos) published within the last year. Web links are acceptable, provided the full article is accessible.
  • A copy of official press credentials, such a press card issued by a recognized journalists’ association or a government-sanctioned press organization and/or a business card issued by a recognized news organization

Freelance journalists including photographers must submit one of the following:

  • A letter of assignment on the letterhead of the news organization being represented
  • Copies of 2 bylined environmental/science articles (or credited photos) published within the last year. Web links are acceptable, provided the full article can be accessed.

Microplastics and circular economy, the challanges of the Mediterranean media

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Two days and five sessions of work were held with scientists and journalists to discuss the energy transition of the Mediterranean region, the circular economy and combatting plastic pollution. The program has been completed with two sessions dedicated to initiatives and tools for the journalistic profession, and to debating and exchanging experiences between professionals.
Around 50 environmental journalists and scientists from 20 countries in the Mediterranean basin, researchers, experts, NGOs, and international institutions attended the 3rd Meeting of Environmental Journalists of Mediterranean News Agencies, held at the UfM headquarters, in Barcelona, Spain (13th and 14th Novamber).
The event has been promoted by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in collaboration with the Alliance of Mediterranean News Agencies (AMAN) and EFEverde of the EFE Agency.

As part of the activities, journalists, scientists and experts paid a visit to the Switchmed Connect’s exhibition on “The Circular Economy in the Mediterranean region”. The exhibition showcased impactful stories from the SwitchMed programme, an initiative that supports and connects stakeholders to scale-up social and eco innovations in the Mediterranean.

“Our ocean plays such a critical role in our economy, and the Mediterranean is both a tourism and conservation hotspot filled with rich biodiversity. We cannot afford to continue turning our ocean into a vast, contaminated plastic soup”, highlighted Antonio Troya, director of the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation.

“The Mediterranean is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. Promoting a collective response from the countries of the region to these challenges is at the heart of the Union for the Mediterranean’s mandate”, said Jorge Borrego, UfM Senior Deputy Secretary-General for Energy and Climate Action. George Penintaex, Secretary General of the Alliance of Mediterranean News Agencies (AMAN) and Arturo Larena, Director of EFE Verde at the EFE News Agency, also addressed the audience at the opening session.

The leit motiv across all the work sessions was that of plastics and microplastics in the sea, the tip of an iceberg that everyone sees and whose consequences are easily understood even by the general public.

The challenge of the energy transition, focusing on the role of renewable resources and energy efficiency, also for its social consequences, was the theme of the first and second round table discussions. Among the best practices presented: the Plastic Buster project that analyzes how waste affects marine life, the film A plastic Ocean. On the subject of microplastics Marie-Aude Sevin, IUCN expert on the marine program dedicated to plastics presented the site marplasticcs.org in which are gathered resources, best practices, events and other useful information on the topic of microplastics. Lucile Courtial of the Prince Albert Foundation in Monaco presented Beyond Plastic Med, a network of stakeholders connected with the objective of collecting data and giving concrete and sustainable solutions to the problem of marine pollution.
The meeting was also an opportunity to compare policy-makers, consumers and the plastics industry and to present useful initiatives and tools for disseminators and journalists on the issues of pollution and science. For example, Patrick Wegerdt of the European Commission DG Environment pointed out that we are moving towards a 100% recyclable plastic and that 50% of waste at sea is made up of disposable plastic objects. The video “Are you eating plastic for dinner?” can be an interesting example of how plastic negatively affects our lives and our health. How to build a society without plastic? From this provocative question Jesus Iglesisas (Ecopreneurs for the Climate) started to explain how the problem of plastic is above all social “the alternatives exist – he said – but we must start from a radical change of habits” in which the key words are inclusion, cooperation, sustainability. The climateinnovation.city site presents events, actors and workers in this direction.

This initiative wants to establish a network of communicators and journalists,  a meeting point where to exchange opinions and discussions. In addition, this event facilitates direct access to important sources of environmental information in both scientific and political areas, as well as aspects of management.

The two previous meetings in Málaga (2015) and Marrakech (2016) enabled the consolidation of this network of communicators, and resulted in several important outcomes including; the publication titled “A journalist’s guide on environmental information”, the launch of the MAP Ecology section as part of the Moroccan News Agency, and the creation of the online platform medgreenjournalism.net to foster networking of environmental journalists across the Mediterranean.