Talk show: Monitoring & Accountability

Overview

The physical and virtual guest of this session shared their experiences to illustrate that new media has introduced novel possibilities into the environmental governance arena. For instance, by using internet tools such as Google Earth, people interested in conservation are able to identify interesting projects all around the globe which they can support in different ways. Making online monetary donations is one way which has become very popular in recent years, as the Healthy Planet Organisation shows.

Moreover, NGOs seeking to enhance political accountability in the environmental realm -following the teachings of Transparency International-  have used the "world wide web" to increase their lobbying capacity and magnify the effects of their "shaming and blaming" actions. A clear example of this is Germanwatch that produces the Climate Change Index to pressure governments for effective climate action.  Despite of these promising potentials, the shortcomings of new media and communication technology should be taken into account, specially if a closer look is given to their failure in natural disaster situations such as the Chile earthquake in early 2010. With the moderation of Ms. Sabine Reinecke and the technical assitance of Ms. Romy Sato (MEG4), this talk-show provided an ideal setting for the open exchange of expertise and skeptical perspectives about the application of new-media tools for monitoring the environmental realm.

                                    Satellite images are part of the plethora of new-media tools to monitor environmental change.

                                                                          Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Click here to download the presentation:

Monitoring and Accountability of the Environmental Realm

About the Speakers

Shaylesh Patel (Healthy Planet)

Shaylesh completeted his graduation studies in Economics & Accounting at Bristol University in 1991, and in 1994 he joined Ernst & Young. During his ten years there he worked for a variety of clients and gained extensive experience in people and change management activities; taxation and insolvency; due diligence; audit and accounting.

In December 2001 Shaylesh became the Chief Financial Officer for Flight Centre (UK) Limited, where he was in charge for the company's strategic, commercial and operational development and management. The Flight Centre (UK) Limited doubled in size during his 3 years at the company. Between July 2004 and October 2007, Shaylesh took  commercial roles at COLT UK, London; You Me TV Plc, London; and ultimately Commercial Development at TESCO plc. Since October 2007, Shaylesh and his wife, Preeti, have dedicated their time to creating Healthy Planet (Source: Healthy Planet website).

You can download his presentation here: Healthy Planet 

Dr. Hansjörg Elshorst

Dr. Elshorst studied literature, history and philosophy in Germany, where he earned his doctorate, and later completed a master's degree in USA in sociology and political economics. Among his extensive work experience, he has contributed as a correspondent and editor for several German newspapers, worked for the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (1970-1974) and founded and became the executive director of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ). From 1996 to 1997 he was the senior advisor for East Asia and for strategy and resource management of the vice-president of the Worldbank. At the Worldbank he concentrated on the further development of partnerships for institutional development and change. Dr. Elshorst is founding member of Transparency International and became its director in 1998 (Source: Transparency Intrernational website).

Jan Burck (Germanwatch)

Jan Burck is Senior Advisor on Climate Change Performance Index, Scenarios and Carbon Markets at Germanwatch since 2005. Some of his main responsibilities are: Developing of the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) and present yearly at the UN Climate Conference since the Conference of the Parties in Montreal. He evaluates and compares German and European Low-Carbon scenarios and the mitigation policies from different countries. He has broad experience working on Carbon Markets, Clean Development Mechanism and EU Emissions Trading Scheme as well as lobbying work on German climate and energy policy. Jan Burck studied Geography, Political Science, Ethnology and Chemistry at the Universities of Bonn and Mainz. For more information on Germanwatch visit:

http://www.germanwatch.org/

Rodrigo Vargas (Forestry Ph.D student, Freiburg University)

Rodrigo Vargas is Ph.D Student at the Silviculture Institute in the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Sciences of the Freiburg University, since 2007. He is specialist in forest Ecology, regeneration and restoration. Member of the Multidisciplinary Graduate School: “Adapting Forest ecosystems to Global Change” in the Freiburg University. Rodrigo Vargas has worked on issues related to the Juan Fernández Archipelago, in the Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile, since 2004. He has experience on Forest Management and Conservation consultancy with small land-owners in central-south Chile. Furthermore, he is member of the Association of Forest Engineers for the Native Forests in Chile and associated with the Silviculture Institute of the Austral University and the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology, University of Chile.

On February 28th a tsunami affected the main bay of Robinson Crusoe Island, located ca 700 km away from central Chile in the Pacific Ocean (Juan Fernández Archipelago). This caused great damages on human lives, local facilities and on the communication nets with the continent. Rodrigo Vargas was at this place when the tsunami occured. Based on this experience he points out the irony of beeing more connected than ever but unable to face natural disasters adequately.

You can download his presentation here: New Media for Monitoring Environmental Disasters?

About the Moderator

Sabine Reinecke (University of Freiburg)

Sabine Reinecke is a trained Political Scientist and Sociologist (M.A., University of Leipzig) and obtained her master's degree on Environmental Governance in 2007 from the University of Freiburg. Her research interests include multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), trade & sustainable development, environmental ethics, and the sociology of scientific knowledge.

Since 2008 she is coordination and teaching assistant of  the international Masters Program in Environmental Governance which is part of the Institute of Forest and Environmental Policy, of the University of Freiburg. She has been working as research assistant in the same institute since 2005, inter alia, in the project on “Conservation of Forest Biodiversity under the CBD: Options for a Global Network of Forest Protected Areas” in preparation to COP 9 in Bonn, May 2008. She is now doing her PhD which seeks to investigate the rationale of power in international environmental cooperation for climate change adaptation, analysing specifically the case of the Kyoto “Adaptation Fund”. Her research pays special attention to so called non-human actors, i.e. whether and how, e.g., technological (New Media) and institutional aspects in supranational governance settings empower poor countries (LDCs & SIDSs) highly vulnerable to and unequally burdened with the effects of climate change.