Problem overview:

     Awareness and visions: The public media can be the focal point for community action to improve the environment. Media often defines morality and environmental concerns are, at their heart, moral issues. In the Kingdom of Tonga, a radio initiative to foster environmental awareness resulted in a decided change of behaviour and a measurable improvement in the environment.

Background:

     Media coordinates and stimulates community spirit

     Tonga Environmental Awareness - a training course via radio: Week Starting in 1984, as the result of a training course in environmental radio broadcasting (Chesher 1984), the Government of Tonga began an Environmental Awareness Week. It has continued every year since and is one example in the Pacific islands where one can point to positive changes in the environment resulting from the change in behavior of the people.

     Support from the government to run the radio programme: The main radio station in Tonga is owned and run by the Government. When a young radio announcer wanted to initiate an annual radio series on environment, the Environmental Division of the Ministry of Lands, Survey and Natural Resources worked with her to create a week long programme that linked with the United Nation's World Environment Day and, as it happens, the King's Birthday.

     Activities and target group of the programme: The project involves a week long celebration of the environment, with schools, businesses and government offices participating in a variety of activities. The radio station presents and coordinates the program in association with the Environment Unit and all the Government ministries that are involved with environmental issues.

     Although individual projects and themes vary from year to year, the week usually includes:

• On Sunday the churches discuss the environment and people's obligation to protect it.
  
  
• On Monday everyone cleans up the island; a massive campaign of sweeping, litter collecting, and trimming of hedges and lawns. Prizes are awarded for the tidiest village.
  
  
• On Tuesday, the Agriculture Department provides seedling trees for free and thousands of people plant thousands of trees on public and private property.
  
  
• On Wednesday there is a contest for the best songs, dances and artwork posters for the environment.
  
  
• On Thursday there is a radio talkback show where people call in to ask a panel of key government officials for information on environmental topics.
  
  
• Radio shows each day of the week on different environmental issues.
  
  

     This programme has made changes to environmental conditions: Sapling trees planted in the first environmental awareness week are now reasonably sized trees. Not all the trees survived, but each year thousands more are planted; fruit trees, nut trees, decorative trees, medicinal trees. It is one of the few examples where one can return more than a decade after an environmental project started in the Pacific islands and find a measurable improvement in the flora.

     Reasons for the success of this programme: The fact that the week happens to be in June, at the same time as the King's birthday, helps the festive spirit and the government commitment. It's success also centers on the realization by the Church, NGOs, schools, government departments, and businesses that the Environmental Awareness Week is a time for co-operation for the benefit of the whole community. Radio has been a big help and, in more recent years, television. People get involved.