The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ghana Journalists Association (GIJ) to sponsor the Best Environmental Journalist category of the annual Ghana Journalists Awards.

Mr John Pwamang, the Acting Executive Director of the EPA, and Mr Roland Affail Monney the President of the GJA, signed the memorandum at a day’s orientation programme organised by the EPA for selected editors across the country.

Mr Pwamang said the sponsorship would run for three consecutive years while other relevant cooperation and partnership endeavours would also be pursued for the benefit of the two partners.

He said the media plays a cardinal role in pursuing any agenda on the environment and as part of the new partnership, the EPA would give some orientation to new graduates from the various journalism training institutions to get them acquainted with essential environmental issues.

Mr Pwamang said the Agency would commence the introduction of a weekly or biweekly media encounter to brief the media on the state of the environment, new scientific discoveries, trends and legitimate international laws among others.

He said the new direction is to strengthen the relationship with the media, fine tune its public education in getting members of the public to appreciate the need to respect and keep the environment for posterity, and get the three pillars of nature mainly the environment, socio-cultural and economic viabilities functioning effectively.

Mr Pwamang expressed concern on the staffing situation of the Agency adding that it currently has about 400 staff nationwide which is far below the man-power needs of the agency.

He said the man-power challenge is “very essential” to the effective functioning of the Agency.

Mr Affail Monney commended the management of the EPA for the initiative and said the new collaboration fits in well in the GJA sanitation programme.

He conceded that the GJA alone could not succeed in the daunting task of ensuring that the environment was clean and urged the editors to use their influence to reposition themselves and help push the GJA Sanitation programme to succeed.

The editors, most of whom are in the senior management positions in their outfits, took turns to contribute to the discussions.