West African local and rural radios introduced with sustainable land management. Esther Tola

(©Afreepress.info/ Lomé, the 28st may)- 

25 journalists from West African local and rural radio stations are attending since Monday in Lomé, a workshop on the dissemination of good practices for the sustainable management of land and waters. For five days, these journalists from Togo, Benin, Burkina-Faso, Mali and Senegal will get notions of land maintenance, climate change and will learn about good practices for stemming the phenomenon of land deterioration. This workshop is initiated by TerrAfrica which is an organization focusing on promoting sustainable land management and the Togolese Association “Radio Citadelle”.

At this point of the training, participants already had presentations on land deterioration as well as on the relation between this scourge and climate change. They’ve also been explained the different ways of adapting to climate change and thus preserving land. They’ve also been introduced to good practices of agricultural management in accordance with the relief and climate in the areas concerned. In support to this knowledge gathering, these journalists were updated not only on journalistic skills notably in interviewing and reporting but also on the use of Internet’s social networks as information research and sharing tools. These media men and women also met with land experts and made field trips for having a better appreciation of difficulties related to land deterioration and of the techniques that could help rolling this problem back.

This training comes on the eve of the 2012 United Nations’ Conference on Sustainable Development known as Rio+20, that will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June. Land deterioration will be high on the agenda during this conference for it has become a topical issue with 20% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s land surface suffering deterioration. Climate change is making things worse because it exposes unprotected soils to dangerous elements rendering them vulnerable.

This phenomenon poses a serious economic problem to the continent which more than 3% of the agricultural GDP are lost annually and which losses regarding its Gross Annual Income are estimated at more than 9 million dollars. Land deterioration actually is a direct source of the agricultural sector’s decline, hence of foodstuffs’ price inflation. Therefore, it is urgent to introduce populations with methods of soil management in order to maintain their richness and fertility while cultivating them. And such an information spreading task is mainly the duty of local and rural radios’ journalists.

At the end of the training, participants will have stories they edited during the workshop, broadcast in their respective media outlets. Their productions will also be posted on TerrAfrica’s website.