M E D I A  A N D  E N V I R O N M E N T

Ask a typical citizen in one of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) what they consider to be an environmental news story.

In the Czech Republic, the answer could be the Temelin nuclear plant. In Slovakia, it could be the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam on the Danube. In Bulgaria, it could be threats to the country's mountains.

All these stories are happening within their own countries.

Ask them about EU accession. Yes, they'll know what that is, but not its link with the environment in their country. Ask them who Lester Brown is, and most just won't know.

A big problem for environmental journalists is that neither they, nor their editors or their readers, are fully aware of environmental news outside of their borders. Even if they are, readers or viewers may not feel that it affects them personally.

This need to localise a regional or international environmental news story was addressed at the Media and Environment Forum held February 4-6 at the head office of the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC). The forum was organised by the REC's Media Information Service (MIS) (see page 3 for more MIS info) while funding came from the EU's environmental directorate, DGXI, and the US EPA.

Some 50 journalists involved in print, radio and television from 14 CEE countries attended the forum, along with two experienced environmental journalists from England - Greg Neale from the Sunday Telegraph and Alex Kirby from the BBC Online News.

As part of the four-day forum, a press conference was held in which REC spokesmen explained the implications that EU accession will have on the environments of the 10 countries wishing to join the EU. Journalists heard, many for the first time, that the environmental costs for accession, estimated at about EUR 140 billion, would be the highest for any sector in their countries. REC Executive Director Jernej Stritih explained the potential advantages and disadvantages of accession. Two upcoming REC conferences in March, assessing accession and how to pay for it, were also announced. Following the press conference, journalists were asked what local stories they could possibly produce from the regional news they had just heard related to EU accession.

REC's Jernej Stritih at the press conference

Albena Arnaudova, editor of Bulgarian magazine Zdrave, said that she would produce a feature story on changing consumption patterns in Bulgaria and how they might be influenced by accession. One suggestion on how to build up her story included comparing EU Directives related to product quality and labelling with existing legislation in Bulgaria.

Toomas Juriado of Estonian Radio expressed interest in how much EU financing for Estonia's accession would go into its troubled energy sector, which relies almost entirely on the inefficient burning of oil shale. "Have decisions been made yet on how this money is to be spent?" asked Juriado.

The key event of the forum was a presentation by Lester Brown, president of the U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute (see story below). Brown detailed how a "new global economy" might answer the world's growing environmental threats, with specific examples taken from the US, Western Europe and China. Following the speech, journalists shared their views on how they would take Brown's environmental information, which was international in scope, and translate it into local stories which would interest their readers or viewers back home. Some, like Hungary's Gyorgy Gado Pal, felt that Brown had failed to discuss how the global situation affects the CEE environment. Others believed it was the duty of CEE journalists to make that local linkage. Others, including Tijana Iljenko of Serbian Television, said that there was no news story in Brown's speech. "There was no Minister, no opening of anything and nobody even knows who Lester Brown is in Yugoslavia," she said.

Greenpeace International's Jonathon Wootliff

To give the story local significance, Sunday Telegraph reporter Greg Neale suggested taking Brown's report to an opposition politician. Or hard dollars and Euros could be the focus of the story. Brown had warned that future corporate investors would become increasingly cautious investing in countries where environmental problems are so large that they are uninsurable.

A good local angle related to Brown's announcement that the American Tobacco Industry had just been sued some USD 251 billion for past health-related costs to the country. In the countries of CEE, something as popular as cigarettes are at least a start to make the local links between people, their environment and their health.

Worldwatch president predicts world's future from the REC in Szentendre "There wasn't a single political scientist in the mid-1980s who said that big changes are coming in Central Eastern Europe. Even the Central Intelligence Agency did not anticipate it." According to Lester Brown, president of the globally respected Worldwatch Institute based in Washington, DC, US, the political revolution that swept Eastern Europe constituted the crossing of a threshold in world history. As we approach the new millennium, there are growing signs that the world may be on the edge of another threshold; this time a global revolution that could lead to an environmentally-driven restructuring of the global economy. Brown presented his theory to some 50 environmental journalists from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) attending the Media and Environment Conference at the REC's head office in Szentendre, Hungary in early February.

Lester Brown: we're reaching the treshold

"Not all environmentalists will agree with me," said Brown, "but I believe that there are now clear signs that the world is in the early stages of a major shift in environmental consciousness." Clear signs include CEOs of prominent corporations who are beginning to sound like spokespeople for Greenpeace. Some political leaders are adopting policies long championed by ecologists. And literally thousands of environmental NGOs have sprung up, mobilising millions of people for change.

Brown cites a number of examples that point to an exciting alternative economic model that can't destroy the earth's natural support systems. In Navarra, Spain, electricity from wind power has gone from 0 to 23 percent in just three years. In a recent speech, Mike R. Bowlin, Chairman and CEO of the oil company ARCO, described the "the last days of the age of oil" and the emergence of a new hydrogen-based energy economy. In mid-August 1998, after weeks of near-record flooding in the Yangtze River basin, Premier Zhu Rongji halted tree cutting in the upper basin, arguing that trees standing are worth three times as much as those cut.

The world could also find hope, Brown said, in the recent success of the 50 U.S. state governments in suing the American tobacco industry for some USD 251 billion for the indirect health effects of smoking.

However, what is not clear, adds Brown, is whether we will cross this threshold in time to avoid the disruption of global economic progress.

"We need to move fast," said Brown. "The Agricultural Revolution was spread over thousands of years. The Industrial Revolution has been underway for two centuries. The Environmental Revolution, if it succeeds, will be compressed into a few decades."

Brown inventoried how climate change challenged the earth in 1998. 300 million people were displaced due to weather-related events while weather-related damage was USD 89 billion world-wide, a 47 percent increase from the 1996 record. The average global temperature in 1998 was also the biggest jump ever since weather conditions started to be recorded in 1866.

In 1998, powerful storms and heavy rainfalls resulted in the great flood in China and hurricanes in Central America. Hurricane Mitch literally altered the geography of Honduras, washing away 85 percent of its crops and most of its soil.

China's modernisation offers compelling evidence of the need to move beyond the fossil-fuel-based throwaway economy. A car in every garage in China, American style, would drive China's oil consumption to some 80 million barrels a day, well above the current world production of 67 million barrels per day.

As for the CEE region, Brown said that problems here are essentially the same as those in Western Europe. Much now depends on what happens in Germany over the next several months. If the new coalition government succeeds in restructuring the tax system, then many possibilities open up for other countries in the EU and those seeking accession to the EU. Presumably, the German government is planning to put a much greater tax burden on the burning of fossil fuels.

A prerequisite for sustainable development is a stable population and that exists in CEE. Brown added that the two fastest growing economic regions in the world are CEE and sub-Saharan Africa. For CEE, there is no reason why the region cannot become environmentally sustainable in a short period of time. And it is easier to introduce new technologies in CEE than in a mature economy.

"The market economy is the only way to get us where we want to go," said Brown. "We just have to get it to tell the truth now. Centrally planned economies don't work."