Ethiopia’s ETV Broadcasting Corporation journalist Demis Mekuriyaw has bagged the African Climate Change and Environmental Reporting Award held in Nairobi last Friday.
The awards ceremony was held in recognition of the excellent journalism produced by media professionals in Africa who submitted stories on environment.
Mr Mekuriyaw expressed his joy at the win, pledging to do more compiling environmental stories in the future.
“I’m elated to be honoured for simply doing my job. I really am grateful and I pledge to continue to do my best in investigating and reporting environmental challenges in my country and elsewhere,” said Mekuriyaw.
Speaking at the awards ceremony Kenya’s Environment and Forestry Chief Administrative Secretary, Muhamed Elmi, said climate and environmental issues were too important to be left to politicians alone.
“I will continue to say it again and again that climate change will deal with us if we do not deal with it,” he said.
“This is where our journalists come in. We also need to put in place incentives for media houses to support their journalists who cover the environment otherwise the journalists will do their work but their newsrooms will not publish. This subject is too important to be left to governments and politicians alone.”
Mithika Mwenda, Secretary General of the PanAfrican Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), which organized the awards and CCDA-VII in partnership with the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Kenyan government, said PACJA was happy with the response of environmental journalists from across the continent though more still needed to be done.
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