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Environmental news from Portugal: Lost in the shadow of Copenhagen
photo by MattGDawson (Flickr Creative Commons)
Portugal is not a country you often find taking up headlines in major international news sources. But the small Iberian nation has recently been home to two major events focusing on the subject of the environment, especially sustainable development. From November 20th - 22nd Portugal’s capital city of Lisbon hosted Planet Earth Lisbon 2009, or PEL2009, a conference celebrating the end of the International Year of Planet Earth. A project by the Earth Sciences for Society, the International Year of Planet Earth is actually three years long, lasting from 2007 to 2009 and ‘aims to ensure greater and more effective use by society of the knowledge accumulated by the world’s 400,000 Earth scientists’ and ‘make the Earth a safer, healthier and wealthier place for our children and grandchildren’. It is a joint initiative by UNESCO and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). Planet Earth Lisbon 2009 brought scientists, political leaders and industrialists together to discuss themes of sustainable development, such as renewable energy and sustainable land and water management.
One month earlier, on October 20th, Portugal commenced the submission period for the European Business Awards for the Environment, a biennial major awards ceremony conducted under the auspices of the European Union. The awards recognize and promote innovative projects by companies that make a significant contribution to sustainable development. The awards are held in collaboration with Portuguese government agencies including the Portuguese Environmental Agency (APA) and the Business Council for Sustainable Development in Portugal. The official period of submission will end on November 30th.
Portugal is a beautiful country with some of the most pristine and well-preserved natural areas in Europe. It is a shame that these environmentally-themed events are not receiving more media attention. This is perhaps due to the current overwhelming amount of focus on COP15, the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen, which takes place in December. Yet these events suffer from an obvious lack of promotion and dazzle; and what little publicity I could find was frankly a bit boring. The websites were either drab or simply did not work and media coverage was virtually nonexistent, even from media outlets in Portugal.
Although I hate to say it, this beautiful promotional film for Planet Earth Lisbon 2009 could have used an MTV-style makeover. Perhaps it might have accumulated more than a couple hundred views on YouTube.
By Graham Land
Tags: cop15, copenhagen, environmental, International Year of the Planet, Planet Earth Lisbon 2009, Portugal, sustainable development
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