By NIDRA KEWERE MAPI
THE media and the National Weather Service (NWS) will set the foundation with other stakeholders so that everyone can work together to reach a common ground from which to mitigate weather and climate related disasters.
This was outlined by NWS director Kevin Luana at a workshop last week, where representatives of the media were invited to attend and give their ideas on how they could play a part in disseminating information about weather and climate issues.
Mr Luana said that although there was a crucial need for accurate and easy to understand warnings through information, the increasing impacts of natural disasters due to climate change would require delicate attention from the NWS and the media.
He added that the Government had been giving priority to climate change in recent years.
“When we study the enormity of the impact and changes in weather patterns, we realised we could have done better.
“We also realised that effective communication, among other challenges and associated developments, could have contributed a lot in terms of reducing lost human lives,” Mr Luana said.
Executive officer of the PNG media council and prominent radio personality, Justin Kili in addressing the workshop, said that the media must make the change in disseminating detailed information from the weather office to the public.
Mr Kili said it was up to the media to work with the NWS to get the correct information across to the public to prepare them for any natural disaster caused by the weather
and hopefully they could save more lives.
“People depend on the media for information on climate and weather changes so the main aim of the media should be to understand the bigger picture and see how we in our profession can help,” Mr Kili said.
He added that the media now had to understand the role of the NWS and see how they could best give the information out to the public.
Mr Kili also mentioned that there need to be co-operation from both parties for this to be done.
Assistant director of the NWS Samuel Maiha said communication was the key in getting information across and was grateful to the media in their participation to help mitigate the risks of climate and weather issues.
He also added that there was a need to bring more awareness to the people and this had to be done through the media.