IMPHAL, NOVEMBER 29: The Indian Himalayas Climate Adaptation Programme (IHCAP) of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), department of Science and Technology Government of India and the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) have announced a series of media engagement workshops in the northeast region.
According to a press release the events are to promote accurate reporting on Climate Change and adaptation measures in the Indian Himalayas
Manipur Governor Dr Najma A Heptulla will formally launch the programme at Imphal while the state’s Environment Minister Irengbam Hemochandra will be delivering the keynote address of the workshop on December 3.
After Manipur, the media workshops will be held in Sikkim, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
The series includes media workshops in all Indian Himalayan states, the most vulnerable mountain systems in the world, over the next three years. The objective of the programme is to trigger interest in Climate Change, its impacts on sustainability, livelihood issues and adaptation stories among journalists, editors and media houses in the region and thereby among the masses.
If effective measures are taken in time, experts believe it may be possible to prevent further degradation of the ecosystem, the release stated.
Under this media engagement programme, fellowships will also be awarded to journalists from the region to write field-based stories. Best stories written by state-level journalists will be awarded at the end of the programme.
“Climate change directly affects vital economic sectors and livelihoods of the communities in the Himalayas. We believe that an informed media has an important role to play for spreading awareness and stimulating action on climate change adaptation and mitigation. We hope that the media workshops will trigger more reporting on climate change issues in the Himalayan region by journalists,” says Janine Kuriger, director of the SDC.
Senior thematic experts, scientists and policymakers will participate in these workshops and interact with journalists from different media outlets in the Himalayan states.
Each workshop will include a field trip to facilitate ground-level reportage on climate change adaptation.
“The real challenge of climate change reporting is to identify changes occurring in ecologically sensitive zones areas and writing about how these changes are affecting communities and their livelihoods. We are trying to build this capacity among interested journalists,” notes P N Vasanti, director general of the CMS, New Delhi.
