A case study on a radio environmental education program in Hubei, China entitled The Environment Protection is With You

Mark Gregory P. Enage

Title: The Environment Protection is With You RATIONALE: I. Background: China is facing serious challenges in environmental protection due to rapid economic growth. It is imperative to enhance the public awareness on environmental protection and sustainable development. One way for them to protect their environment is through participating in environment-related activities that is also related to environmental awareness. To ensure this is to: first, people should have participated in environment-related activities and have a higher environmental awareness than people who have not. Second, active participation helps is more effective at raising peoples environmental awareness than passive participation. Third, passive participation works better than only passively receiving information. Fourth, negative environmental experiences (e.g. making a complaint or visiting a higher authority to ask for help) can strengthen peoples assessment of the seriousness of environmental pollution and the actions they take to protect the environment, but it rarely increases their awareness or the value they place on environmental protection. It is urgent to promote environmental protection in the countryside. The public media has advantage in educating the citizens. Although the environmental problems have been reported frequently on the public media, presently there are

no fixed environmental education programs in public TV and radio in Wuhan region. Wuhan Green Environment Service Center, an environmental NGO, joined by Hubei Peoples Broadcasting Station and International Fund for Chinas Environment (IFCE), has proposed to develop an environmental education program on radio called The Environment Protection is With You to promote concepts of sustainable development and educate the public on environmental knowledge. The radio program is jointly developed by Wuhan Green Environmental Service Center and the radio station. It covers topics of environmental policies and legislation, activities, public opinions, environmental knowledge, and environmental monitoring. It is a very good platform for the public, business and government to communicate and share information concerning the environment problems.

II. Objectives: IFCE sponsored a 30-minute weekly radio environmental education program on Hubei People's Broadcast Station (HPBS) entitled as The Environment Protection is With You, which covers around 60 million people. The goal of this program is to educate the public on environmental laws and knowledge and to encourage the public participation in environmental management and monitoring. Specific objectives are to develop 30-minute radio program on a weekly basis to cover:

Environmental laws and regulations: latest environmental law and regulations Environmental reports: environmental projects, public and NGO activities, and important governmental decisions, air and water quality, etc.

Environment knowledge: science and technology (water, air, noise, soil, energy, waste treatment, biodiversity, recycling, etc), health and environment, ecological system, sustainable consumption, etc.

Environmental monitoring: citizen reports on pollution incidents and other environmental problems, citizens dialogue with professionals.

III. Methods: IFCE sponsored a 30-minute weekly radio environmental education program on Hubei People's Broadcast Station entitled as The Environment Protection is With You, which covers around 60 million people. The program is broadcasting every Sunday from 1:30 -2:00pm.

I. Design of the program:

Key Staff

Liangzhen Fan: Mingxue Li:

Director of Wuhan Green Environment Service Center Chief reporter, Hubei Peoples Broadcasting Station

Jun Lu: Station Jun He: Yijuan Zhang: Project Advisors:

Reporter of Law Column, Hubei Peoples Broadcasting

Program editor, Wuhan Green Environment Service Center Program anchor, Hubei Peoples Broadcasting Station

Zhongshun Zhang: Former Director, Wuhan Environmental Protection Bureau Houqian Jiang Science Zhihu Wang: Enterprises Dr. Hongjun Zhang International Enviro. Law Team, Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. Richard Ferris Attorney, Beveridge & Diamond, P.C., USA Deputy Secretary General, Wuhan Council of Green Assistant Director, Institute of Plants, Chinese Academy of

Vice-chairman, International Fund for Chinas Environmen