Short summary: For the The World Clean-Up Day 2018, at the initiative of Delegation of EU to Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and with support from EkoSfera Social and Ecological Centre an awareness raising environmental campaign was carried out on the beach of Novkhani on the Caspian Sea. Among the participants were the Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan, the Ambassador of the UK to Baku and over 200 volunteers from Azerbaijan and the staff of EU embassies.
Authors: Elshan Hamzayev, Nargiz Valizade
Media: AvropadASAN Radio
Date of publication: 16.09.2018
Link to podcast (in Azerbaijani)
Story transcipt:
It’s already 15 years The World Clean-Up Day are celebrated internationally in different places of the World. Azerbaijan joined this initiative 8 years before. Regarding the World Clean Up-Day with the initiative of Delegation of EU to Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Ecology, Natural Resources of Azerbaijan Republic, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and support of EkoSfera Social and Ecological Centre there was held an awareness raising environmental campaign in the coast of Novkhani beach of the Caspian Sea. More than 200 participants who were provided with necessary sanitation tools gathered huge amount of trashes in short period of time. Ambassador Kestutis Jankauskas, Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan was also among the participants of the campaign:
We all go to the beaches usually and enjoy them. It’s clear that we enjoy more the beaches which are clean, not with full of trashes. The purpose of today is awareness raising through our interactions with environment. “
Furthermore, the Ambassador of Great Britain to Azerbaijan Ms. Carole Crofts was also among the participants of the campaign:
My message is let’s reduce the amount of the plastic production. Each of us take role in this mission. While taking the plastic packages from supermarket and using the bottles after drinking water, we should pay attention to that. Let’s try as much as we can to recycle the same plastic product. We should choose the plastics not the ones which cannot be used after first try, but those that can be used multiple times.”
Arastun Hasanov, the member of Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan:
The improvement of tourism is one of the priorities. Therefore, all the trashes which are causing to diminish the biodiversity has also huge impact on creation of swamps which is damaging the coasts and impacting negatively on the quality and view of nature which also creates setbacks for tourism.”
In addition to officials, young volunteers were also very passionate in mobilizing around the coast of Caspian see for common purpose:
It’s important to me to protect the environment. We did very good job because this coastal area has not been cleaned-up probably more than 15 years and we did that.”
Some people may say that we are not the ones who throw the trashes here, so why should we clean? However, I came here and saw that there are many people who do not think only about him/herself but also think about others and we are here as volunteers, nobody forced us to come here.”
It is very good to see that young people are very active in such projects.”
For your attention, the representatives of ASAN Radio were also participating in this campaign. After gathering all the trashes, it was determined that plastics, bottles and food remnants are among the most used items in the coast of the sea.
16 young journalists joined the 3 days program of EU experts. The highlighted topics covered during the training were broad:
- The methodology of journalism
- New approaches to journalism
- The differences and similarities between journalism and communication
- The methods of writing impressive stories
