NEW DELHI, August 24: The International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ) will hold its annual congress in New Delhi on November 21-24, 2005 in collaboration with the Vatavaran annual film festival, organised by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) here.
This year the film festival is for all Asia (not South Asia alone), though the competing films will be exclusively Indian. The theme is "Forests for Life" and the films will deal with environment in general and wildlife in particular. The IFEJ Congress theme will be "Human-Wildlife Conflicts and Sustainable Development". This is against the backdrop of vanishing tigers in India.
The IFEJ was formed in Dresden in 1993 and has several associations of environmental journalists from around the world as its members. It has since held its annual congress in Paris (twice), Boston, Budapest, Cebu (Philippines), Sri Lanka, Bogota, Cairo, Germany and St Petersburg.
The programme is as follows:
- November 21:
- Opening and Keynote address by John Vidal, Environment Correspondent, The Guardian, London
- Presentation on "Environment and Media": CMS
- Human-Wildlife Conflicts, with reference to India’s vanishing tigers: Sunita Narain, Editor of Down To Earth magazine, Director, Centre for Science & Environment, Delhi & head of Government of India’s Task Force on the Tiger
- Presentation): Do Tigers or People Prevail? Panel discussion between Valmik Thapar, Director of "Land of the Tiger" TV series (BBC and elsewhere), Bittu Sehgal, Editor of Sanctuary Magazine, Pradip Prabhu and Madhu Sarin, Tribal Rights Activists
- Panel discussion: Are environmental journalists a vanishing species? Panelists: John Vidal, Jim Detjen & CMS. Chair: Darryl D’Monte
- November 22:
- Panel discussion: Does TV do a better job on reporting on the environment? Panelists: Damandeep Singh, National Geographic Delhi editor, New Delhi Television representative, CMS, and others.
- Workshop: Shifting Trends in wildlife filmmaking
- Workshop on e-journalism for journalism students: To be conducted by Jim Detjen, Director, Knight Centre for Environmental Journalism, & Dave Poulson, Michigan State University, US
- November 23:
- Dealing with Climate Change: Dr R. K. Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Director, The Energy Research Institute, Delhi
- Delivering Water & Sanitation to the Poor, Gourisankar Ghosh, Executive Director, WASH Campaign, Geneva
- Panel discussion: Can environmental journalism be taught? Chair: Dr Robert Thomas, Loyola University, New Orleans, US
- Presentation: How can environment make TV news? By Nalaka Gunawardene, Regional Director, Television Trust for the Environment, Asia-Pacific, Sri Lanka and Representatives from News Channels.
For information, contact:
Darryl D'Monte
Chairperson, Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI)
Administrative Council Member, International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ)
Mumbai, India
Tel 91 22 2642 7088 & 2645 9286
Fax c/o 91 22 2645 8870
Email: darryldmonte@gmail.com
