"Arab Environmental Monitor"--new website/blog
FROM: Batir M Wardam
Dear Friends and Colleagues;
I would like to announce the launching of my special website/blog named "Arab
Environmental Monitor"
www.arabenvironment.net
which also has an Arabic interface at www.arabenvironment.net/arabic/
This blog was created in February 2006 as a virtual platform for updates and
analysis of the Jordanian environmental issues and now I have decided to expand
it into an Arab platform targeting the Jordanian, Arab and international
environmental community.
I am an Ecologist by profession and education, and have worked for 10 years in
environmental management with local and international organizations in a career
that included Academic institutions, NGOs, research centers, community groups,
media and currently government. I have also worked in various activities with
the World Bank, IUCN, UNEP and most recently UNDP. In this career I focused on
issues of communication and networking and discovered that information on the
Arab environment is plentiful, contrary to what most Arab and international
environmentalists think, but it is scattered.
I thought that one of my main missions will be to try to contribute to the huge
task of bringing together such information.
I am not claiming that I can do this via a blog that is run and managed on
voluntary basis and by one individual but I will certainly try my best. I am
currently dedicating 3 hours a day for this blog with 50% spent on research for
materials, 25% for writing and 25% for promoting the blog.
I will highly appreciate if you can assist me with sending me press releases,
news, descriptions of activities, publications and events by yourselves,
organizations and networks to my e-mail batir@nets.jo
since this will give me a lot of help in minimizing research time and focus
more on diversifying and improving the content.
The sources of information I am using for the blog are as follows:
1- News from media outlets (newspapers, magazines).
2- News from regional and global networks with special focus on the Arab world.
3- News, overviews and activities of organizations in the region.
4- Publications and reports.
5- Conferences.
6- Multi-media products.
7-Best practices in the field
I have discovered the powerful potentials of blogging in the begenning of this
year. This is a very powerful and easy to manage e-tool which I believe will
transform the shape and quality of communication and media in the coming
decades. Although blogs started as personal diaries they have matured to become
strong and effective communication tools that can be managed easily with a
user-friendly system that can accommodate serious professional content as well.
To maintain its "blog" identity this site will contain a lot of personal
opinions and analysis as well as linking to and highlighting content from the
best sources of environmental knowledge in the region.
This blog will always be in a "transitional" state aiming for better content
management and I will be very proud of any critical and useful comments that
can guide the course of development of this blog.
I welcome you all and hope this platform will be useful.
Batir M Wardam
MsC in Ecology
Researcher and writer in Environment and Development
Tel 00962 6 5816845
Fax 00962 6 5560288
Mobile 00 962 79 98 666 44
P.O.Box 140823
Amman 11814
Jordan
e-mail: batir@nets.jo
Environmental Blog: http://www.arabenvironment.net