Published in EJ News, Spring 1999

Environmental journalists from more than 40 nations adopted an international ethics code for environmental journalists at the sixth world conference of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ) held here last fall.

The conference was held amid tight security from October 19 to 23 at the Blue Water Hotel in Wadduwa, just outside Colombo.

The world conference was organized by the Sri Lanka Environmental Journalists Forum, the Asia Pacific Forum of Environmental Journalists, and IFEJ.

Among the countries represented at the meeting were China, Japan, India, Vietnam, Bhutan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mauritius, the Maldives, the Solomon Islands, Nepal, Philippines, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Australia, Hungary, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Columbia, Guyana, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Cameroon, Ghana, Brazil and the United States.

"Adopting an ethics code acceptable to journalists from many different nations and cultures was quite a challenge," said Jim Detjen, IFEJ president and one of two journalists who represented the United States. "Journalism is practices differently around the world in many different styles. I believe we have made an important start in adopting a core set of ethical principles that environmental journalists agree on worldwide."

During the conference, the IFEJ board of directors selected Bogota, Columbia as the site of the seventh world conference, expected to be held in October 1999. The 2000 conference will be held near Cairo, Egypt. Three countries indicated that they are interested in hosting the 2001 conference—China, Bangladesh, and Norway—but no decision was made on when that conference will be held.

The Sri Lanka Environmental Journalists gave its International Green Pen Award to nine journalists for their contributions to environmental journalism around the globe. Among those honored were Aditya Man Shrestha of Nepal; Darryl D’Monte of India; Valentin Thurn of Germany; Detjen of the United States; Vijay Menon of Singapore; Manuel Satorre of the Philippines; Quamrul Chowdhury of Bangladesh; Yang Mao of China and Marta Sarvari of Hungary.

During the five-day conference the journalists discussed ecotourism, biodiversity, climate change, water issues, urban environmental problems in mega-cities, environmental journalism education, broadcast journalism and investigative reporting in newspapers. The journalists also discussed problems faced by environmental journalists worldwide, including censorship, intimidation and imprisonment.