Ahmedabad: In a bid to spread ecological awareness among youngsters and bring out the best ways of communicating the ‘green’ message, Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad (MICA) has joined hands with the Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC).
Through the three-day conference on ecology, communication and youth that began on Monday, the two institutions aim to brainstorm and devise strategies to encourage people to take steps for saving the environment.
Dr Shailesh Nayak, secretary, Union ministry for earth sciences, spoke at length about different threats because of climate change. “The sea level rising, which was 1.8 ml per year in 2003, has now doubled to more than 3 ml in the Indian subcontinent. We have seen that in the last two centuries, human and social system has affected environment, affected condition of coastal habitat, marine life, etc,” he said.
According to AK Verma, member-secretary of GEC, “The challenge is different strategies of communication. It has to be different when communicated to businessmen, stakeholders, policy planners and poor people. Here, we would get different ideas of effective communication.”
Among the participants are John Symes, program director of International Alliances, USA; Dr Nagesh Rao, MICA director and Prof Arbind Sinha. Around 120 delegates from Orissa, West Bengal and Gujarat are participating in the event.
The participants mainly comprise youngsters from different backgrounds - ecology and communication scientists, researchers, government and non-government officials working in related field, environment activists, representatives of corporate sector and media professionals.