Public Relations

The following is information pertinent to the public relation aspects of an Amazon project.  Once again, for the purpose of a case study the specifics of this information mostly pertain to Brazil.

Political Targets - A more thorough breakdown of the politics of major groups whose influence is crucial to the success of our project.  Includes the names of agencies with whom we should establish a working relationship if we wish to have access to the relevant group.

Education/Training:

As part of the public relations plan, our team wants to increase the awareness of the public about the environmental problems concerning the Amazon Basin Rainforest and about our Mission 2006 project. I have researched some existing environmental education programs in Brazil as well as proposed environmental training and education programs in projects organized by the World Bank. I have found that there have been extensive efforts in developing plans for environmental education with the goals that we have in mind. We can modify these existing plans to educate people about our project, but as for educating people about the rainforest, we would only be reiterating what others have done or plan to do. The next step of my research would be to look at how effective these programs have been and look for possible areas of improvement. But I don't forsee us to be able to develop a whole new and original plan for environmental education.

Education Policies - Many groups have shown interest in educating the Brazilian population.  Here is a breakdown of the various actions and policies that are aimed at the issue of education in general.

Environmental Education - This is a breakdown of previous and current endeavors to educate people on the importance of the environment.  The breakdown includes the objectives of these projects and where they draw their backing.

Dissemination of Information/Media Outlets:

Dissemination goes hand in hand with education. This topic involves the means of letting people know about our project and the environmental problems concerning the Amazon Basin Rainforest in general. I have complied a list of Brazilian television and newspaper outlets. Radiobras and TV Globo seem to be the two television outlets that are most accessible and most likely to aid our project. Radiobras is a part of Agencia Brazil and is responsible for dissemination of Brazilian government information. TV Globo is the largest television outlet in Brazil and has a weekly documentary program 'GLOBO REPORTER' on controversial topics of general interest that includes environmental questions. Other examples of environmental- friendly media outlets in Brazil are: TV Cultura (the program REPORTER ECO), the magazines Veja, Ciencia Hoje, and Superinteressante, the newspapers Folha de Sao Paulo, and Agencia Estado, and Globo Ciencia.

Besides disseminating information through traditional mass media, the internet serves as a great means of dissemination. I have found that Rainforestweb.org to be a very informative website about rainforests. We need to create a website that is accessible and comprehensive to the general public. One thing we have started to work on is a FAQ list.

Dissemination of information on a more local level is also very important. Our team has discussed ideas about talking to indigenous people or training them as teachers. Mainly, we want interactions on a personal level as part of a good public relations strategy for our project. Possible ideas include visiting schools, holding town information sessions, etc.

Media Outlets - This is a basic listing of various mass media outlets that we can use to spread information about or project.

Interest Group Alliances:

It is important that Mission 2006 forms alliances with interest groups that have the same goals as we do for the overall image and success of our project. It is also important to note the existing projects that these groups have already implemented, some of which are very similar to what we are trying to do. The key interest groups that I have identified are The World Bank/WWF Forest Alliance, Green Peace, and The Rainforest Action Network. Some of the programs that relate to conservation and monitoring of the Amazon Basin Rainforest are ARPA (The Amazon Region Protected Area Program), MAP (Monitoring and Analysis Project), and LBA (The Large Scale Biosphere-Atmoshpere Experiment in Amazonia).

Other Public Relations ideas:

Our team talked about surveying public opinions or at least have a plan to figure out the general response to our project once it is hypothetically implemented. The reason being that the success of such a large-scale project relies on the cooperation of the government, which depends on the public opinion. Politics is a very large aspect of the public relations policy because we have to make the project appealing to the Brazilian government as well as the Brazilian citizens.