BBC World Service
Last month I was interviewed by the BBC World Service’s Outlook programme for an article on my work on desertification for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The interview ran over the new year and has proved to be a wonderful new way to spread the message about this issue (the BBC World Service gets around 37 million listeners worldwide apparently).
If you missed it, then you can click on this link here to listen to the entire interview.
Here is the text that ran on the BBC World Service Website:
“Some of the most striking images on display at December’s Copenhagen climate change conference were pictures of China taken by a young British photographer.
Sean Gallagher travelled across the world’s most populated country on what is known as the ‘desertification train.’
And he documented his journey in photos to show how life is a constant struggle for those living on the edges of China’s deserts.
BBC World Service
China is fighting a war against creeping sand – year on year its deserts are expanding and joining to create a massive dustbowl.
It is estimated that 20 per cent of China’s land area – some 1.74 million square kilometers – is now classified as desert.
One of the main stops on Sean’s trip was Hongsibao – an environmental refugee town built from scratch by the Chinese Government to house those forced from their homes by the sandstorms and water shortages.
Lucy Ash spoke to Sean and asked him how these environmental refugees feel about their new home.”
Yesterday morning, I was invited to the China Radio International studios here in Beijing, to take part in a panel discussion about desertification. The discussion was a great success and I was really happy to be able to talk about this issue and my work for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting on the radio for the second time this week. One of my aims for the distribution of this work was to get it out into as many different media outlets as possible. With the advent of new media, I think radio has been forgotten a little in a way, so it’s good to promote it here on my blog.
The above audio file is an interview that aired with China Radio International today, on the subject of desertification and my work for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.