The Nobel Prize winner in economics 2009, Elinor Ostrom, and José Sarukhán, leading Mexican expert on Biodiversity, joined an international seminar and workshop for journalists on Climate Change and Biodiversity on 15 and 16 July in Mexico City. The meetings were organized by Tierramérica, the Latin American communication platform on sustainable development and environment, as the next step of IPS activities in preparation for the COP 16 on Climate Change.

Tierramérica, a joint initiative of UNDP, UNEP, the World Bank and IPS, organised the seminar together with El Colegio de México, the Mexican Ministry of Environment and the Mexican academy of journalists.

The seminar had a great impact in the media. It was attended by more than 20 journalists from the most important Mexican media, and has been disseminated worldwide through the IPS and other international news agencies wires.

The seminar made an intensive use of new technologies. All the activities were transmitted by an online TV channel, and a special chat was created to allow online participants to ask questions and make comments to the panellists. Mrs Ostrom participated via video conference from her desk in the United States.

The interactive dimension was a great success thanks to Tierramerica’s newsletters subscribers and from its friends in Facebook: all the streaming channels were overloaded during a great part of the day, which means that at least 250-300 people were permanently attending the meeting; and in all the panels, together with the Mexican participants questions, a lot of real time questions and comments from every country in Latin America, and even from Spain and several African countries, were received.

Juan Rafael Elvira, Mexican Minister of Environment, emphasized in the importance of this seminar, as part of the global efforts to increase awareness and attention around the Cancun meeting.

The seminar was followed by a workshop for journalists, with participation from 20 journalists from Mexico City and other Mexican regions’ media.

See workshop programme at: http://www.tierramerica.info/docs/seminario-cambio-climatico-periodismo-07-2010.pdf