Single title
EDITED BY : ALASTAIR CARTHEW, PAUL LINNARZ
CO-EDITORS : SIMON WINKELMANN, ANNA GLAESER
Nine of the 15 cities with the highest air pollution in the world are in East Asia. Asia-Pacific’s
greenhouse emissions are increasing at a rate twice as fast as the global average. Much
of South-East Asia’s original forest cover has been destroyed, at an annual loss rate the
size of Switzerland. Asia-Pacific has the highest annual water withdrawal of all the world’s
regions. Water shortages are projected for 2025 in India, China, North and South Korea,
Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. Bangladesh could lose 17 percent of its
land area to rising seas caused by global warming, and Indian crop yields could decline by
30 percent by 2050.
Clearly, with such enormous environmental problems facing the region, the need for
widespread, accurate, informed and regular communication on all aspects of the environment
is crucial to mitigate these issues as much as possible.
Environmental Journalism, however, is a fairly new field. In addition to being competent
journalists, environmental reporters must also be researchers, have some scientific and
even economic knowledge to be able to accurately conduct their duties. In some states, as
we point out, journalists must also be prepared to confront vested interests, who, in some
cases, can turn violent.
This publication sets out to achieve a number of objectives of importance to environmental
journalism in the Asia-Pacific region. The objectives are:
• To identify the key environmental issues facing the Asia-Pacific region
• To identify and assess journalism organizations, NGOs and others involved in
environmental journalism
• To identify relevant environmental institutions, journalism awards,
funds and educational programs
• To assess the state of environmental reporting in Asia-Pacific