Environmental Reporting for African Journalists: A Handbook of Key Environmental Issues and Concepts

Published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), this 179-page handbook was produced to provide readily available access to key environmental issues and concepts to journalists to help improve environmental reporting. Each section deals with a specific aspect of the environment and is designed to provide a quick but detailed reference guide for journalists on each topic. According to the publishers, the media play a strategic role in raising environmental awareness, channeling environmental information, and inspiring environmental action and, as such, is crucial to the work carried out by UNEP. For this reason African journalists, through the Africa Network of Environmental Journalists, were extensively consulted in the production of this handbook and their input has ensured that the handbook truly reflects their concerns and needs.

The handbook includes the following topics.

• Africa Environment Outlook: This section provides an overview of Africa’s environment, based on that given in the second edition of the Africa Environment Outlook report (AEO-2).
• Key environmental issues: This section provides outlines of key environmental issues, introducing the UNEP divisions that deal with these issues.
• United Nations and the environment: This section provides information on the United Nations and the major bodies within the United Nations that are concerned with the environment. It also provides information on several environment-related United Nations programmes and projects. Global initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals and the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development are also discussed here.
• Multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs): This section discusses MEAs and introduces the reader to the MEA drafting process, meetings, negotiations, and signatures, and also the ratification procedures. It also describes how an MEA comes into force, the overall procedure and the decisions made by the conference of parties and the development of protocols. This section also outlines the major global environmental conventions currently in force.
• Reporting on the environment: This section provides key pointers on environmental concerns that journalists may wish to report on. It provides brief information on organisations, networks, and processes that deal with the management of environmental information. This section also presents some ideas on target audience and focus groups, provides suggestions on how to avoid errors in environmental reporting, and discusses some challenges and opportunities in environmental reporting.
• Environmental contacts and networks: This section provides a list of relevant contacts that may serve as reliable sources of information. It also lists networks and training opportunities that are available to journalists writing on the environment.