The Pacific Media and Climate Change Toolkit is a new resource developed to help journalists in the region report on climate change and environment issues.
Launched by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) with support from the Pacific-Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning (PACCSAP) programme, this toolkit was formed as part of SPREP's Media Outreach activities in answer to the requests from Pacific media for assistance with understanding this issue.
Developed in close consultation and input with Pacific media members the toolkit consists of a series of factsheets and a training manual of activities to help newsrooms absorb the information and enhance their reporting on climate change and environment-related issues.
"We are grateful to be able to launch this. After numerous requests from Pacific media during our media outreach activities it's a plus to be able to answer the call from Pacific media for support. We now look forward to the toolkit being used and a greater awareness of climate change and our environment come through news stories throughout the Pacific," said Mr. David Sheppard, Director-General of SPREP.
"We'd also like to acknowledge the role of the Government of Australia through PACCSAP, for their support in making this happen."
Ms Lalage Cherry, Director of the PACCSAP programme in Canberra, said that the Australian Government had welcomed the opportunity to partner with SPREP and build on their Media Outreach Programme to make practical information on climate change more meaningful to the Pacific, through the media.
"The media has a huge role to play in raising community awareness and enhancing our ability to understand climate change, and this toolkit will support these efforts," Ms Cherry said.
To ensure the toolkit would be as useful as possible to Pacific newsrooms, wide consultation was carried out with members of the Pacific media and parts of the toolkit were also developed by those that work in the media within the region.
The factsheets within the toolkit range from topics such as climate change and waste, climate change and ecosystem based adaptation as well as what causes climate change and climate change mitigation. The wide range will help reporters understand the link between climate change and other environment-related issues.
This is accompanied with a manual of activities that can be adapted to suit any situation, whether it is for internal newsroom training led by an Editor or national media association training on the topic of climate change. A number of these activities were selected based on their success during media workshops facilitated by SPREP over the past years.
To obtain your copy of the toolkit online please visit: https://library.sprep.org/sites/default/files/PMCCT_activities_manual.pdf and please visit the site regularly to obtain the new factsheets that will be uploaded on a regular basis.