Another glimpse of light for Arab environmental activism.   Source: the Media Line   Copenhagen, Denmark Liana B. Baker / TML – Three days before the U.N. climate talks kicked off in Copenhagen, Tarak Tayara was told he was accepted as an official observer at the negotiations. The 28-year-old hopped on the next flight out of Lebanon and landed the next day in Denmark, ready... [read more]

While the public opinion and activists all over the world are showing public expressions for the need to reach the deal in Copenhagen our Arab street are quite like a desert, only mobilised by football rivarly and religious/political discourse. This small vigil in Lebanon organised by Greenpeace is a welcome candle in the darkness of our collective environmental awareness.   Source: Daily... [read more]

I have always admired the encyclopedic knowledge of HRH Prince Hasan bin Talal and I always feel encaptivated while listening to his speeches or reading his articles. I think, however that the Prince may increase the penetration of his ideas to the general Arab public by engaging directly with the public opinion through initiating a blog that may act as a platform between the Prince and the people... [read more]

The Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) released the results of a survey, the first of its kind in the emirate, which was conducted to measure the level of environmental awareness and behavior among the general public in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.   'The results of this survey have helped us to better understand the impact of environmental education and awareness programmes conducted... [read more]

An innovative tool for environmental education and awareness from lebanon, that can be spread to the region. This is a report by the Daily Star   By Marc Abizeid This year the Ibsar Nature Conservation Center for Sustainable Futures decided to take on a new approach to spreading environmental awareness and gaining support for their activities. Instead of relying on sympathetic donors... [read more]

IUCN Regional Office for West Asia and the Middle East has recently published the latest report that I have edited entitled "Future of Sustainability in the Arab Region". The report is a synthesis of the proceedings of a regional meeting that was held at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in June 2008. The meeting gathered an experienced group of Arab intellectuals and practitioners concerned with sustainability... [read more]

A new online community where young people can have their say on the environment by uploading videos, pictures and comments is being launched today. The site, www.connect2earth.org, will also allow people to rank other entries, discuss the issues that matter most to them, and share smart ideas and solutions from their own communities. Each month users will vote on a winner who will be rewarded with... [read more]

For the first time in the Arab world, a civil campaign has been developed and launched with a very strong message for pan-Arab coordination for action against the threat of climate change. This is the press release by IndyAct, the organization that has spearheaded the campaign:   Beirut:18 Oct 2007 – ‘Climate change is the biggest threat to our livelihood and our Arab governments are not taking... [read more]

Environmentalism is a shared conviction among all human races, religions and ideologies and it reflects a sense of deep attachment to sustainable values that is not limited to a particular set of beliefs, more than others. Reading an article entitled "Muslims going green" in South California In Focus", described by its publishers as "the largest muslim newspaper California" made me feel uncomfortable... [read more]

Ok, this is a nice refreshing challenge for all of you interested in photography. A special contest is currently on flickr for the greenest photo ever. The contest is designed by DeSmogBlog which is a website dedicated to clearing the PR pollution that clouds climate change. It promotes scientific facts about global warming, and aspire to debunk climate change deniers. Details of the contest can... [read more]

Blogging late better than never. I know it has been two weeks since I came back from Alexandria after participating in the IUCN CEC workshop entitled "New Learning for Sustainability in the Arab Region" but I have learned a lot from this event which made me think deep before blogging. Actually I was very busy with some work deadlines, thinking about the future of this blog and celebrating the holy... [read more]

By: Batir Wardam   Of all media categories, whether political, economic, social, artist or sports, the environmental media in the Arab world does not have its own identity and features. Any media identity requires several characteristics, such as the presence of its own media institutions, of professionalism and specialization, of knowledge about the issues it covers and, finally, the presence of... [read more]

A good comination of innovative ideas and financial resources can yield some extraordinary results. This will be demonstrated yet again in Saudi Arabia where the barren dry country will host the world's biggest stystem of botanical gardens and landscsapes. Spreading over an area of 160 hectares (395 acres) the gardens aim to re-create the 400 million-year-old history of the Earth's plants, trees... [read more]

Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has recently launched its Digital Library,(http://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/dspace) which is the first Open Access Institutional Repository established by a Canadian research-funding organization. The IDRC Digital Library provides full access over the Internet to IDRC’s rich research archive. In addition to making information more freely available, this... [read more]

This is a press release from "Environment & Development" magazine:   Beirut, 6 June 2007   Youth Environment Parliament (YEP) celebrated World Environment Day in a ceremony held at the premises of Environment & Development magazine in Beirut. Hundreds of students and teachers from schools all over the country participated, along with representatives from the Ministries of Environment... [read more]

Source: Jordan Times May 25 2007   The UNESCO Amman office, in collaboration with the Swedish-based NGO Life-Link Friendship-Schools (www.life-link.org), brought together school teachers from different countries in the region in a two-day workshop this week. The workshop, designed to raise awareness on the environmental and culture of peace programmes among educators from the Middle East,... [read more]

The excellence of producing the first State of the Environment report was claimed by Abu Dhabi last week. Although I have learned that both Lebanon and Egypt have produced former national reports, while Jordan produced a "civil society" perspective report, Abu Dhabi has made it clear that it is the leader by producing a highly informative report that can be traced and viewed from www.soa.ae  ... [read more]

A spokesman at the Qatar-based Al Jazeera broadcasting channel said that Al Jazeera Children's Channel has inaugurated its Voyage to the Future competition for Arab children for two weeks, the Peninsula reported. The competition aims to educate and raise the awareness of students about environmental issues. Therefore the winners of the competition will travel to a given country for 10 days in order... [read more]

Blogging has became a highly effective and free expression medium that is spreading all over the Arab world. Amongst thousands of blogs in the Arab World very little focus can be found on environmental issues. One of the best and most informative Jordanian bloggers is "Khalaf" and he has proven to be environmentally aware in many posts. This is a collection of some of Khalaf's best environment related... [read more]

The Arab Forum for Environment & Development (AFED) announced the launching of its work program during a press conference organized on the occasion of Environment 2007 conference and exhibition held in Abu Dhabi. The conference, addressed by AFED’s Secretary General Najib Saab, has been the first public proclamation of the regional Forum, after it gained the status of regional non-governmental... [read more]

Gulf Daily News By Rebecca Torr   Children as young as three may soon learn how to protect the environment in their kindergartens if a group of educationalists get their way. "For years we have been looking to have environmental education in kindergartens, it's so essential," Environment Friends Society (EFS) president Khawla Al Muhannadi told the GDN. "The earlier you can instil environmental... [read more]

Dubai hosted the Global Environmental Youth Convention in December 2006. The details of the convention can be accessed at www.geyc.ae One of the major initiatives of the convention was to launch the Global Youth Reporters programme. The programme is part of a long-term project to teach basic news gathering and news writing skills to students from around the globe. Reuters Foundation consultants... [read more]

A regional workshop on information and communication improvement for environmental management in the Mediterranean region was held in Rome in October 2006.   This link provides all the documents and presentations of the workshop  [read more]

The Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE)  http://www.oaresciences.org/en/  is a new international public-private consortium coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Yale University, and leading science and technology publishers, enables developing countries to gain free access to one of the world's largest collections of environmental science literature... [read more]

Apart from begenning with the letter (J) and setting beside each other in international conventions, Jordan and Japan do not have much in common when it comes to environmental education, behaviour and disipline. However, a group of scientists and researchers from the Al-Hussein Bin Talal University in Jordan and Institute of Science and Engineering for Societytried to challenge that perception, in... [read more]

The most comprehensive survey of the state of awareness and education of the Arab public vis-a-vis the Environment has been published by the Environment & Development magazine in June 2006. The survey was conducted in all Arab countries, and organized, analysed and edited by Mustapha K. Tolba the former Executive director of UNEP and the father of the Rio earth Summit in 1982, and Mr Najib Saab... [read more]

A new and very important resource book his been published. The "Environmental statistics in the Mediterranean countries - Compendium 2005", is the second environmental statistics compendium produced by UNEP/MAP Blue Plan, the implementing agency for the MEDSTAT-Environment project (MED-Env), in collaboration with the EC EuropeAid Cooperation Office and Eurostat. It has been compiled on the basis of... [read more]