The VI Central Asian festival of ecological journalism is to be held in the capital of Kyrgyzstan on 25-27 June. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will participate in the festival.

The finalists of the contest for the best ecological work among print mass media, TV and Radio programs of the region will be presented at the festival. The topics of journalistic works cover the issues of bio-diversity, water, climate change and desertification.

Over 500 works from all Central Asian states published or aired in the period from 1 September, 2005 to 1 April, 2007 participated in the contest, the official press release says. The journalists who were highly rated by the international jury of the festival were invited to participate in the final. The jury consisted of specialists in the field of mass media and ecology experts.

The Central Asian festival of ecological journalism is an independent thematic festival which is held to support and develop ecological journalism in the Central Asian region as well as to increase public awareness about issues of ecology and rational nature management.

The festival is organized by the public organizations Ecological initiative/UNEPCOM (Kyrgyzstan), Ecological press center (Kazakhstan), Nature protection squad (Tajikistan), Association of nature protection of Turkmenistan (Turkmenistan) and non-governmental organization Logos (Uzbekistan).