Gland, Switzerland - Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, Patron of the IUCN - The World Conservation Union - will present the 2000 IUCN-Reuters Media Awards to nine regional winners at a ceremony in Amman, Jordan on 9 October during the World Conservation Congress.

The awards, established two years ago in collaboration with Reuters Foundation, recognise excellence in professional reporting on environmental and sustainable development issues. This year the competition was extended to include television and Internet, as well as print reporting. The nine stories, selected from hundreds of entries from 64 different countries, range in scope from a vigilante group in China committed to saving an endangered animal from poachers, to a television documentary that links drug trafficking with environmental degradation. The regional winners come from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, El Salvador, Bolivia, Canada, China, Qatar, Germany and Russia.

Her Majesty Queen Noor said: "In today's world of rapid communication technology, where global media reaches almost all sectors of society, it is now possible to generate and sustain public interest in the growing environmental threats to our planet, and to directly influence the decisions and actions of individuals in response to these threats. It is imperative that professional environmental reporting links environmental challenges to mainstream socio-political and economic affairs, thereby bringing issues to the forefront of sustainable development priorities."

IUCN Director General Maritta Koch-Weser and Reuters Foundation Director Maureen Marlowe, will also host the ceremony on 9 October at 5 p.m., at Amman's Sports City.

The winners were selected from jury members in nine different regions, listed below. One global winner will be chosen among the nine regional winners by a Master Jury, comprised of Her Majesty Queen Noor; IUCN's Director General Maritta Koch-Weser; His Excellency Kader Asmal, Minister of Education of South Africa; and Geert Linnebank, Editor-In-Chief of Reuters.

Maureen Marlowe, Director of Reuters Foundation, commented: "The communications revolution has made a greater volume of information available to a wider audience than ever before, increasingly driving the actions of communities and individuals. It is vital for news providers to ensure responsible, high standards in the reporting of global issues which will contribute towards informed decision-making at both grassroots and policy levels. These awards provide an opportunity to recognise the excellent work of journalists the world over who ensure that crucial environmental issues remain firmly in the global public consciousness."

The World Conservation Congress, which will be the largest environmental gathering ever in the Middle East, runs from 4 to 11 October in Amman. During the week-long summit, more than 2,000 participants from 140 countries will focus on substantial environmental issues, such as globalisation, climate change and biodiversity.

Maritta Koch-Weser explains: "The special theme of the Congress is Eco-space we will try and bring home the message that transboundary management of eco-systems is vital for the environmental agenda. Eco-spaces need to be managed jointly by neighbours to achieve true sustainability."

The winners of the regional IUCN-Reuters Media Awards are:

• For South and Southeast Asia, Lu Hong Jian of Yang Jun for: "China's Bureaucrats Rival Poachers As Threat to the Endangered Chiru" - a television documentary which describes the struggles of the Wild Yak Bridge, a vigilante group committed to preserving the chiru, an endangered gazelle-like animal whose "shahtoosh" fur is valuable for making shawls;
• For Eastern Europe, Boris Zhukoy of Itogi Magazine for: "The Great Cats of Russia", which is a comprehensive examination into preservation efforts of the Siberian Tiger, the Far Eastern Leopard and the Snow Leopard;
• For French-speaking Africa, Souleymane Ouattara of Quotidien du Soir for: "Our Friend, Fire", about the unlikely alliance and friendship between a former poacher and a wildlife warden in Burkina Faso;
• For English-speaking Africa, Ibaba Don Pedro of The Guardian for: "Life on the Harsh Lane", a chilling look at the hardships faced by women in regions of Nigeria because of environmental degradation brought on by multi-national oil companies;
• For the Middle East and Northern Africa, Yasir Mahgoub Mohammed El Hussein of Al Sharq for: "An Unwelcome Neighbour in Al-Hilal", which is a series of five articles describing efforts to get a warehouse full of hazardous chemicals moved from a residential neighbourhood in Qatar;
• For North America and Oceania, Alanna Mitchell of The Toronto Globe and Mail for: "From the Vanishing Forests of Madagascar", a comprehensive look at the growing number of extinct species on the island nation off the East Coast of Africa, which is often referred to as "the land of living fossils";
• For South America, Oscar Ugarte and Paolo Galarza of Total Quality for their television documentary, "Crosses in the Forest", that shows that drug trafficking in Bolivia is an environmental problem as much as it is an economic and social problem;
• For Western and Central Europe, Johanna Romberg of Geo Magazine for: "The Cosmos In Your Own Backyard", about a one day search for 1,000 different species on a 12-square kilometer plot of land in Germany;
• and for Meso America, Morena Lidia Azucena Mayorga of La Prensa Grafica for: "The Immigrants", which describes parakeets' search for a place to sleep in an El Salvadorian town after their trees were cut down to widen a road.

---------------------------
For further information, please contact Josué Anselmo, Head of the Communications Unit at IUCN-The World Conservation Union: 28 rue Mauverney, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland (41 22) 999 02 07; Mobile: (41) 79 477 21 28.
joa@hq.iucn.org
Also contact Jo Weir, Project Manager for Reuters Foundation: (44 (0)20 7542 5872.

IUCN - The World Conservation Union was founded in 1948 and brings together 78 states, 112 government agencies, 735 NGOs, 35 affiliates, and some 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide partnership. Its mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable. Within the framework of global conventions IUCN has helped over 75 countries to prepare and implement national conservation and biodiversity strategies. IUCN has approximately 1000 staff, most of whom are located in its 42 regional and country offices while 100 work at its Headquarters in Gland, Switzerland.

Reuters Foundation - www.foundation.reuters.com - is an educational and humanitarian trust funded by Reuters, the global news and information group. It offers study and training opportunities to journalists from all over the world and supports charitable initiatives reflecting the concerns and interests of Reuters staff, focusing in particular on community, health, the environment and education. It also supports a wide range of humanitarian causes and runs AlertNet - www.alertnet.org - an award-winning, web-based news and communications service for the international disaster relief community. AlertNet was launched in 1997 and currently has over 125 international relief agency members.