In Nassau
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) regional information officer for Latin America and the Caribbean Alejandro Laguna believes specialising in environmental journalism remains a difficult task not only in the Caribbean, but worldwide.
During his presentation to participants at a UNEP Caribbean journalists' workshop at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel on Monday, Laguna said media houses around the world were still heavily centred on politics and sports, leaving little space for comprehensive environmental news reporting.
Laguna shared some of his personal experiences as a journalist in Spain, saying he was required to cover environment under a broad header including technology and crime. This positioning of environment news as an aside seemed to be the precedent for news agencies, he said, and workshops such as the one hosted by UNEP were vital to provide tools to journalists wanting to specialise in environment.
The two-day workshop, themed Challenges for the Environment and the Ozone Layer, focused on the Montreal Protocol for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, which is 25 years old and considered the most successful environmental agreement in UN history. The Caribbean region has received more than US$16 million in funding from the Montreal Protocol multilateral fund.
Also in focus were findings of the fifth UNEP Global Environment Outlook report published in June. The report found that Latin America and Caribbean governments needed to increase measures to enforce existing legislation on the protection of natural resources, in addition to the need for creation new legislation and policies.
Among the 16 participants were Byron Buckley, associate editor of the Jamaica Gleaner, Kathy Barrett of Caribbean Media Communication, and Timothy Payne, managing editor of the Antigua and Barbuda News Pages, as well as reporters from the Antigua Observer, ABS Television, Barbados Nation, Bahamas Information Services and Stabroek News.
