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BLOCK
05 EPÍLOGUE
FALTA
Stories worth being told
By Arturo Larena, Director of EFEverde
Arturo Larena is a scientist and environmental journalist. He is the
Director of EFEverde the Science and Future area of the Agencia EFE,
the world’s foremost Spanish-language news agency. He has been
delegate of EFE in Extremadura, Madrid and Galicia. He teaches at the
Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano foundation of the Nobel Laureate
Gabriel Garcia Marquez and is a member of the advisory council of the
international network Escritores por la Tierra. He has been a patron
of EFE foundation, where he actually fostered the programme for
specialization in environmental journalism. He has been awarded the
National Prize for the Environment, the Fundacion BBVA Prize for the
Conservation of Biodiversity and the Golden Panda Prize of WWF as one
of the Spanish nationals who has contributed more to creating a culture
of conservation of the enviroment from the mass media.
In order to know where we want to get, it is important to know where we
come from. In the case of how to communicate the Natura 2000 Network
this principle also applies. There lies the importance of the workshop
on Communicating the Natura 2000 Network. We aimed at ascertaining
what we can improve so that information on the Natura 2000 Network is
better perceived by both professionals and citizens and we also aimed
at defining some key issues and creating a useful tool for every professional
who approaches the area of environmental information. We know
that it is not a simple task because the whole sector of environmental
information and the journalists dedicated to it are still striving for it to be
acknowledged and given more space in the mass media. When we look
at the dissemination of information on the Natura 2000 Network, we are
talking about a superspecialization as well. The result is that it is not
always well understood or valued in general issues media, who do not
necessarily have environmental journalists on staff. It must be borne in
mind that those are essential to reach the general public, to go beyond
audiences that are already environmentally aware.
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Natura 2000 Network. Handbook for journalists