A Nigerian radio journalist, Ms Ugochi Anyaka, has been awarded the second Young Environmental Journalist Award by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – for her report Saving the Trees for Paper Briquettes on her radio show ‘Green Angle’. The piece, which was broadcasted on ASO Radio, Abuja, profiled a project in a low-income suburb of Abuja that manufactures briquettes from waste paper, in order to provide an alternative fuel to traditional firewood.
Anyaka is currently in Colorado, US on the latest leg of a specially-designed ‘green itinerary’, where she is meeting with leading environmental reporters, scientists, and researchers, and visiting sustainable development projects across the United States.
Since arriving in the US on June 2, 2013, Anyaka has spent time with National Geographic magazine, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of State, UNEP, and completed a work placement with Voice of America. Anyaka joined scholars, social scientists, and journalists at the ‘Communicating Climate Science’ conference in Granby, Colorado. The event focused on the role members of the media can play in relaying the latest science on climate change to the wider public.
Anyaka said: “Whether it is in US newsrooms, radio stations in Nigeria or through social media accounts across the world, reporters have an increasingly important role to play in informing the public about our rapidly changing environment.”
Anyaka is keeping a blog during her US study tour, which is available at: www.unep.org/yeja. Her regular blog is available at www.econigeria.com and she tweets with the twitter handle @ugochianyaka.
Launched in 2010, the UNEP Young Environmental Journalist Award aims to showcase excellence in the field of environmental reporting and nurture new talent that will help to shape opinion on the environment in Africa, and beyond, in years to come. The award, is open to all African journalists between 21 and 35 years of age, and is made possible through funding support from the US Department of State.
