[APCPress] News special: E stands for environment

[Karen Higgs]

E stands for environment: ICT tools to empower activists struggling to 
protect environment around the world

Pavel Antonov for APCNews

A working group of APC members aims to bring environment higher on the 
ICT policy priorities of global civil society. Information and 
communication technologies are a powerful tool for civil society 
protecting environment. But more is needed to streamline ICT work of 
different groups and communities, and offer them access to the ICTs they 
need to secure environmental sustainability, a BlueLink/APC survey shows.


On the morning of March 10, 2005 I received a stunning photo among my 
incoming e-mail. The picture showed the inside of a police vehicle 
guarded by uniformed police. There, I saw the face of Dimitur Vassilev - 
a committed environmental activist, co-founder of Bulgaria’s civil 
society electronic network BlueLink, and a good friend of mine. The 
police had detained him in front of the gates of Bulgaria’s inistry of 
environment, in a desperate attempt to silence his environmental 
criticism against two gold mining projects funded by Canadian interests, 
in Bulgaria.

Needless to say, within a minute I had forwarded the image with an 
accompanying message that explained the reasons for Vassilev’s detention 
to tens of journalist colleagues through Bulgaria, all over Europe and 
the world. And I was not the only one to do so. The arrest of an 
environmental activist became a turning point in one of the most recent 
non-governmental organisation (NGO) quests in Bulgaria - the 
Cyanide-Free campaign. By various means on offer on the internet, the 
concerns and arguments of Vassilev & co. reached the general public, 
mass media, and even the institutions of the European Union -to which 
Bulgaria aspires membership. Putting the man behind bars could not shut 
his voice down. It was all online – an example of the power of the 
internet and electronic communication for environmental protection.

The Cyanide-Free Bulgaria campaign is just one of thousands of occasions 
in the past decade where civil society has used information and 
communication technologies (ICTs) as a powerful tool for keeping the 
public alert and informed on the pressing issues of environment and 
nature protection. ........
Read on: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5038550