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Environment Reporting affect them and their children. Unless they pushed for their voices to be heard, their main source of economic livelihood from the lagoon might continue to be jeopardized. In another example, an island or a piece of land along the coast might attract foreign investors who will turn its natural beauty into a tourist resort. With the lure of big cash, landowners might be only too willing to give in without considering the consequences. Natural trees and plants would be cut down and, in their place, houses and other facilities will be built. The sewage and drainage system from this resort would likely damage fish and living organisms along the coastal area. So what would be the role of the media in this situation? Often, in radio and TV coverage of such stories, reporters bring together comments and views expressed by both sides in the debate. Environmentalists from government and civil groups often cooperate with people in the area to express the fear that such a large-scale project might disrupt the status quo. These voices often make headline news in both radio and TV Tonga news bulletins, asking questions about how many tourists our Pacific Island countries want and what might happen to the environment with their arrival. Another area of concern is the amount of danger to the environment and people’s lives caused by the constant use of pesticides and agricultural chemicals. Agricultural stories, which often dominate the daily news of both mediums, often speak to the amount of agricultural exports and how, in turn, they boost the local economy. But during the past several years, and with the help of PINA and the Asia- Pacific Forum of Environment Journalists (APFEJ), reporters from Asia/Pacific countries have been reminded of the role they play in adding more depth to the discussion of these issues. As a member of APFEJ, I stress to my colleagues that when they cover agricultural stories, they need to seek other angles—both positive and negative— that touch on environmental issues. From listening to those who call in to radio programs and independent feedback from the public, it seems that people are beginning to appreciate the value of such coverage. Through the years, Radio Tonga News has highlighted many environmental stories, which were the result of closer cooperation with government and nongovernment organizations, communities, lobbying groups, as well as concerned citizens. Such stories have involved coverage of global warming and the greenhouse effects, rising sea levels, and other threats to the environment, which are being vigorously debated among major world powers. Not surprisingly, these are rather sensitive issues to people in the Pacific, particularly those who live in low-lying islands, such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and Nauru. On TV news programs, visual images show people what is happening. And with these pictures illustrating the issues, there emerges greater understanding by people of the need for more of this kind of coverage. ■ Nanise Fifita, a 1991 Nieman Fellow, is the editor for Radio & Television Tonga News of the Tonga Broadcasting Commission. In July, Fifita received a Pacific Ocean Sciences Fellowship from the Washington, D.C.-based SeaWeb organization in conjunction with PINA to study the destruction of marine and terrestrial environments in the Pacific Ocean. nanisefifita@yahoo.com Satellite Imagery for Environment Reporting Journalists can use these images and data to report and illustrate stories. By Claire Parkinson During the past several decades, satellite technology has provided an amazing new ability to observe the earth-atmosphere system. With satellites, the most remote regions of the globe can be viewed as readily as the least remote regions, and data can be collected globally within a few days. Some instruments can obtain surface data even in the presence of a substantial cloud cover, while other instruments can provide the data to produce three-dimensional visualizations of the structure of such atmospheric phenomena as hurricanes and thunderstorms. Satellites collect data relevant to a wide range of environmental topics, from the ozone hole and low-level pollution in the atmosphere, to deforestation and glacier retreats on the land, to algae blooms and El Niño-signaling temperature patterns in the oceans, to biomass burning and shrinking lakes or eroding coastlines. In each of these cases, and many others, the amount of information that the satellites can provide is enormous. By carefully selecting satellite imagery, these pictures can be used quite effectively by reporters to illustrate many points. For example, journalists who might be reporting on the shrinking of the Aral Sea (caused largely by the diversion of inflowing waters for such purposes as irrigation) can vividly portray this shrinkage by presenting side-by-side, identically geolocated images from different decades. 86 Nieman Reports / Winter 2002
Environment Reporting Types of Satellite Data Satellite data come in different types, but a common factor is that all satellite instruments measure radiation and only radiation. Some sensors measure various wavelengths of visible radiation, all of which our eyes can see, and other sensors measure ultraviolet, infrared, microwave or other types of radiation, none of which our eyes can see. In any event, no matter what the topic of ultimate application, what’s measured directly is exclusively radiation. Satellite images constructed from visible data have one inherent gigantic advantage, which is that the images are generally readily understood just by looking at them: Clouds look like clouds, sea ice floes look like sea ice floes, land/sea boundaries are readily identified, etc. Furthermore, the value of some visible imagery has been clear since the first earth-observing satellites were launched decades ago. A prime example of this utility is provided by the visible imagery of hurricanes. Hurricanes form over warm ocean areas, fed by evaporation from the ocean beneath. In view of their oceanic origin, prior to satellites hurricanes were often not observed until just hours before landfall. Now they are readily recognizable in satellite visible images, often days before landfall, thereby enabling what can be lifesaving warnings Eruption of Mount Etna, in Sicily, as viewed from NASA’s Aqua satellite on October 30, 2002, using data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument. Original image in color, courtesy of the MODIS Science Team. Calving of a major iceberg off the coast of Antarctica, as viewed from NASA’s Terra satellite on March 28, 2000, using data from the MODIS instrument. This iceberg is twice the size of Delaware and broke off from Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf, necessitating remapping of the coastal boundaries. Original image in color, courtesy of Jacques Descloitres and the MODIS Science Team. Nieman Reports / Winter 2002 87
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NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATIO
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Creating a New Web of Connections T
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Investigating What Happens to Refug
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