Sunday, February 28, 2010

THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATORS, PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICERS AND EDUCATORS

The fi rst assumption is that issues have been i d e n t i fied and solutions to these fo u n d. The ro l e of commu n i c at o rs , p u blic re l ations offi c e rs and e d u c at o rs is then to pass these on. The role of e d u c ator is of course deeper as it invo l ves incorporating the knowled ge, skills and desired behaviour into the make-up of the people they teach . Ideally stakeholders together with communicators and educators take part in the process of issue identification and the development of solutions. Then together they will select various media, plan intellectual as well as emotional communications, identify target groups, design communication packages, test them for retention and impact value. Finally a campaign can apply these as required and as resources permit , and evaluate results .


Environmental citizenship
Design and implement a campaign for different key target groups from coastal areas (fro m
school children through tourists and tourism staff to decision-makers) to introduce this concept.
Environmental citizenship involves both the rights to enjoy and duties to protect the environment by all citizens.



The precautionary approach
Principle 15 of Agenda 21 (1992) states that ‘in order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied’ and ‘when threats are serious or irreversible damage is being done, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing
c o s t - e ffe c t ive measures to prevent (furt h e r ) degradation’. Each concerned group should discuss how to apply this approach to their immediate surroundings. Included here is the application of environmental accounting to all governmental, para-statal, institutional and corporate accounts.



Learning by doing
A basic and successful learning approach consists of learn e rs actually doing things (e. g.
cleaning beaches, replanting mangroves, putting up posters and bins, monitoring fish landing,
doing field ecological observations and measurements such as salinity, temperature of water,
species distri bu t i o n , ox y gen and E. coli in lagoon water etc.) as a means of obtaining firsthand knowledge, not book or electronic information.



Environmental reporting
The objective of environmental reporting is to train journalists, public relations officers and
others to provide information to the public, special groups and the decision-make rs ab o u t
coastal zone events. There are many vehicles for effective environmental reporting, e.g.
• State of the Earth reports
• environmental indicators
• Environmental Impact Assessment reports
• environmental audits
• printed press (newspapers, journalists)
• e l e c t ronic media (telev i s i o n , ra d i o , the Intern e t )
A strong recommendation is to have sound environment and development journalism in each
member state, as a means of keeping coastal zone issues and solutions continually alive.


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