In Bangkok, Thailand, the Opening Plenary of the World Conservation Forum 18th November, 2004 focused on the challenge of communicating conservation and sustainable development messages to wider society. With the support of the Bellagio Forum, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, the Shell Foundation, UNESCO and others, the IUCN asked: if the Congress theme of People and Nature – Only one World seems so obvious, how do we communicate it to the rest of society?

The two hour plenary program involved several sessions directly related to communications the highlight of which was a roundtable moderated by Dr.Minu Hemmati, which explored the challenges of communicating sustainable development messages, and what needs to be done to capture the attention of the next generation.
Panelists at the opening plenary of the WCC in Nov. 2004, which included a BFSd sponsored media roundtable (photo by IISD)

The panel included:

• Ms. Karen Coshof, President, Stonehaven CCS Canada Inc, producer of the film the Great Warming.
• Dr.Claude Martin, Director General, WWF International, Switzerland.
• Mr.Bertrand Collomb, CEO of Lafarge; Chair of WBCSD, France.
• Ms.Pati Ruiz-Corzo, Director of Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda, Mexico. The roundtable held in Bangkok completed the series for  the Environment in the Media program.

A special video was also produced for the opening plenary.  You can view it here.