NGOs seek media help with environment campaign
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) has called on the media to help non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) campaign for sustainable development.
Walhi executive director Emmy Hafild told The Jakarta Post yesterday that the mass media is the most effective tool to stimulate public debates about the sustainability of Indonesian development and to invite suggestions for improvements.
"The media will be able to effectively build general consensus on sustainable development. These debates, however, should be conducted free from pressures from any groups in society," she said during a break in a seminar on the relation between the mass media and NGOs yesterday.
She acknowledged that the term "sustainable development" for the economic, social and environment sectors is not an easy concept to implement. Very often, society has to sacrifice one sector in order to develop the other sectors, she pointed out,
"Many times...people put economic development before environment preservation," Emmy said, adding that the cost of such an approach is usually great.
Most of the time, poor people, especially women and children, become victims of badly planned development. "If society has to sacrifice certain (sectors) for the sake of the others, then it should be declared openly," Emmy said.
She cited as an example the plan to establish parks in the city. "The government shouldn't just appropriate land without providing adequate compensation to the land owners," she said.
The one-day discussion, titled "Developing Better Media-NGOs Relations to Disseminate Sustainable Development Approach", was organized by Walhi and Inter Press Service.
Among the speakers were Kunda Dixit, Inter Press Service's director for Asia, and Nasir Tamara, deputy chief editor of Republika daily.
Emmy said that NGOs, as one of the proponents of sustainable development, must work hand in hand with the mass media. For their campaign to succeed, however, the media should dig deeper into stories.
"The public may be stimulated to debate and question the ongoing development practices by in-depth stories and features that include the opinion of many sources over a long period," she said. "It's this kind of reporting that we find is still lacking in our mass media."
She noticed the relationship between media and NGOs has never been better. The NGOs realize they need the mass media to articulate their mission and communicate their aims to politicians and the government. The media, on the other hand, need NGOs as news sources.
At present, she said, NGO activists and journalists have developed a close, unique friendship and solidarity, mostly because the two face similar risks in their activities.
Among the risks she mentioned were being branded subversive or dissidents by the power holders.
WALHI is a forum of 267 NGOs from all over Indonesia.(31)