Journalists from various media outlets in Libreville convened at Brainforest headquarters on 24 May 2018 with the CV4C project team for a consultation aimed at achieving sustainable collaboration in the sharing, processing and dissemination of information on forest and land governance.
This meeting with twelve journalists enabled Elodie Grace NTSAME OLLOMO, CV4C project manager at Brainforest, to make a clear and comprehensive presentation of the objectives, progress and results gathered during the implementation of the CV4C project. Alongside communication manager Germain DJEUKING, the organisation spoke about the role and importance of media involvement in communicating the results of forest monitoring.
During the exchanges journalists were keen to express their satisfaction with the consultation process, but they pointed out the difficulties of access to information and threats received, the topics deemed sensitive, as well as the lack of openness of NGOs to media. These barriers hinder their willingness to communicate on environmental issues.
Rappelons que Brainforest participe à la mise en œuvre du projet CV4C, entendu « Voix des Citoyens pour le Changement : Observation Forestière dans le Bassin du Congo (CV4C) » ; Ce projet sous régional concerne 5 pays du bassin du Congo et vise de façon globale, à outiller et renforcer les capacités des Acteurs Non Étatiques (ANE) à faire le suivi de la gouvernance forestière et foncière.
Regarding the issue of support for ‘the active engagement of the media in forest governance and the communication of forest monitoring results’, the solution lie in setting up a viable network for information sharing, periodic meetings between journalists and NGOs, training journalists on the technical aspects of forest governance, and producing a newsletter among other points. Additionally, there may be need for funding to support the network in the long term.
To achieve this, the first step in this direction was the creation of a WhatsApp group for communication purposes. Other actions will be refined in future meetings, for which dates were set.
