INTERVIEW: Tanja Atanasovska-Petrovska, editor of “Ecology”

Ecology is the job I choose

Tanja Atanasovska-Petrovska entered the waters of ecology in 1991. At the time she might not have assumed that ecology would become so important in her life or that she would be an editor of a magazine dealing with ecology. The young journalism student built her experience on the “green phone” in the Ecological Association “Opstanok", then as a technical, and soon after a general secretary of “Opstanok”.

Together with her colleagues journalists she founded the Journalist’s Environmental Center, and today she is president of the Environmental Press Center that has resulted from the JEC. She became an editor of “Ecology” in May 2000 and about herself she says that ecology is the only thing she wants to deal with. The celebration of the 10th year since founding the magazine “Ecology” was a direct reason to talk to its editor.

CW – Your “service experience“ in the ecological movement is longer than in “Ecology”. How and when did you start being interested in the environmental issues?
T.A.P – When my interest in ecology started I was a journalism student. Together with some faculty colleagues we founded FOMEK and it started functioning as youth of the Environmental Association “Opstanok”. I cannot say I was very familiar with ecology at the time, only the idea of environmental protection seemed very interesting to me, so I started attending the “Opstanok” meetings regularly, in order to find out something more. The atmosphere was also impelling, there was a huge energy in the people around me who were dealing with ecological issues. A lot could be learnt from them. We were so enthusiastic that we used to bring things from our houses in order to equip the Association’s offices.

So it was very logical for me to link my future profession, journalism, to ecology. When later on I started working in the Macedonian Television, I decided to become an ecological journalist.

C.W. – Afterwards, you, journalists, decided to regroup. Why?
T.A.P. – There were a lot of journalists who wrote about ecological problems in “Opstanok”. For one moment we felt the need to establish an association that would organize us, journalists. The basic reason was to keep objectivity and to write about the other associations in the same way, not only about Opstanok. The organization we founded was called Journalist’s Environmental Center (JEC). In the course of time it experienced certain transformations and today we have the Environmental Press Center. I have to admit that there is a difference in the “zest“ that was more expressed in the beginning, when the organization was founded. I think that one of the reasons is the decrease of the number of journalists who write about ecology. It is a worrying trend in the desks. That is why we are planning to have a meeting with the editors and to tell them that ecology should be treated by educated journalists. Reporting by incompetent persons does not contribute to forming public opinion. It is insisted upon sensationalistic journalism, confusions are made that can cause big damages.

C.W. – Can the magazine “Ecology” contribute to building our citizens’ eco-moral and ethics?
T.A.P. – Our mission is in building the eco-moral and eco-ethics at each individual. We admit it is a very difficult and painstaking process, but persistence pays.

The fact that the magazine “Ecology” has existed for 10 years in our informative space says a lot. The continuous issuing has provided us to be among the most prestigious magazines in our country. Through the correspondence network and thanks to the great enthusiasm that the people we cooperate have, we inform and educate about the pulsing of the environment and the nature in our country and all around the world.

Thanks to the creative spirit in this ten-year time interval, the desk of the magazine “Ecology” has published 85 editions with 2720 pages, where the chronology of a part of the events of the environmental movement has been written down.

“Ecology” is an educational manual for this field and it has great influence in building ecological awareness and culture.

C.W. – A lot of editors of similar magazines would envy your jubilee. What is the formula for the “Ecology’s” sustainability?
T.A.P. – Most of the circulation of “Ecology” is distributed in schools. There are schools that understand the essence of ecology very well. For the schools that do not want to subscribe for the magazine we provide a free sample for the school library since our first and basic objective is to spread education. That is why we insist on understandable texts. It certainly depends on the teacher who is responsible for that kind of optional teaching and his/her dedication to ecology.

Ecology’s distribution in schools has been approved by the Ministry of Education.

It is difficult to create a magazine where you will offer contents that attract readers from different generations. Therefore, the first pages of the magazine are aimed for more adult readers and then, on the other pages we place texts that could help teaching. There are teachers who call the desk and want to cooperate and this kind of cooperation lasts from issue to issue. Thus, distribution in schools has contributed for the magazine to sustain for the past ten years to a great extent.

Distribution is carried out through subscriptions. The present circulation of “Ecology” exceeds the number of 10.000 copies per issue.

C.W. – Is it difficult to be an ecologist?
T.A.P. – Ecologists are not always understood by the environment. Young people understand them more, older ones not so much. Most of them think they are freaks and fanatics. On the other hand, expectations from ecologists are big. At the time when I was working on the “green phone” in “Opstanok ”, there were often phone calls mostly by people not satisfied with the fact that ecologists are not present when the container emits smoke, when the litter is scattered around etc. We were trying to explain that it is something that everyone should take care of, that ecologists are not municipal workers on duty, but volunteers who want to contribute to environmental protection, but it does not mean that they walk around the town putting out the fire in containers. In order something to be changed in the environmental treatment, for example in the treatment of waste material, there is a need for large action not only by civil organizations, but also by the state and public companies that work professionally.

We should all strive for sustainable development, sustainable consumption and to think long-term regardless of whether we are ecologists or not.