INTERVIEW
Eduardo Rêgo: “Loving the Planet shows the world through the eyes of
those who love it”
those who love it”
Published on October 20th, 2015
With an unmistakable voice, restrained by the defence of a cause he calls a mission - the preservation of nature -, Eduardo Rêgo spoke to Clima@EduMedia about “Loving the Planet”, his latest project. The announcer has narrated, for the past 30 years, a weekly programme about animals, plants, and nature in general. Now he wants to do more: to alert society to the beauty of the planet, and inspire it to change its behaviours, which is necessary to maintain this beauty.
How did Loving the Planet come about?
For 23 years, since the beginning of SIC (TV channel), I have been in the two weekend programmes telling the stories of plants and animals, of inhospitable regions, of deserts, of mountains, and of oceans ... Stories about the solidarity of some species (like bees) that are closely related with us!
Drawing a parallel, it is almost a catharsis for people feeling “blue”. We talk of ants, of meerkats, of behaviours so interesting that move us, but also of angry nature ... All this combined with fabulous images, the best in the world, and with major productions by the BBC and the National Geographic. In this context, I lived in constant restlessness!
I feel a pressing need to inspire! I feel as if an imperative of conscience leads me to want to say, eye to eye, to whoever listens to me and has done so for many years that it is worth turning this page of an almost divorce with nature, and go from books to practice. And it was in this context, allied to a tremendous concern about climate change, and the fact that we are dangerously jeopardising the future of the planet, that I proceeded with “Loving the Planet”. The world is sick, and we are sick with it. It is necessary to save the millions of beings of all species! Nature demands respect for its values, because nothing is as scientifically experienced in balance and beauty as she is ... That is why “Loving the Planet” was born, to look at the world through the eyes of those who truly love it! This poetry is part of what viewers recognise in me and that is what truly leaves a mark.
What are the main objectives of the project?
No matter how many organisations there are in the world committed to protecting the environment and promoting sustainability, none of the organisations, to date, appeared sufficiently unattached and available to involve everyone and everything with the power of a hug, and with irreplaceable communication tools. “Loving the Planet” serves this purpose!
We want to create an online TV channel, and perhaps another type of medium, but a channel that reaches everyone, and with the contribution of everyone. I dream of creating a building, a neuralgic point of meeting where we can really have headquarters. The programme would be a direct continuum of beautiful things taking place in different parts of the world. All this can provide us with a collective consciousness of belonging to this common home. Basically, we want an honest and positive approach to the planet and its sustainability that excites people. Doing this in Portugal, we would be pioneers!
Would it then be a collaborative project or something with a more rigid structure?
I have a tremendous fear of all that is structured because it enters the field of systematisation. Interestingly, I see a lot of people do wonders in terms of study, beautiful programmes to achieve certain ends, but like everything that is not permeated by such charm and poetry often ends up being defrauded. The spontaneity of things is what makes them beautiful, just like in nature ... Therefore, there is no concern with systematising “Loving the Planet”. I have a lot on my mind, but I'm not in a hurry to put it into practise and structuralising the project. I want things to happen very naturally.
“If we continue to work wonders in isolation, we will reach nothing”
What has already been developed?
The idea is completing its first year and, at the present time, the platform is making its way into the social networks. We have started there, because we know that nowadays they have a force that is recognised by all. I have also used a betting strategy in the video. This format is impressive, it has visibility and raises people's curiosity ... Whenever I make a video it has more views than a photograph or a well-written text!
Nevertheless, I have been talking about “Loving the Planet”: at a conference here, in a trip to a university there, at a get-together, and I began realising that there were people on the ground who could administrate the page, as long as I got used to the production of contents with reasonable quality and within the framework of the project. We have grown by this method, with different institutions and individual employees that, whenever in possession of a little video, put it directly on the page.
In the area of climate change, do you have a strong action axis?
Some institutions have begun asking us to become their media partner. This applies to the SPEA, for example ... And in particular in the chapter on renewable energy, I have several meetings scheduled to increase the publicity with a view to provide deeper awareness among people who are not sufficiently acquainted with this issue. There are immense energies to be tested, many of them well known, but not so deeply that causes people and businesses to adopt new behaviours in what concerns energy consumption. We are attentive to this issue, and we hope to increase disclosure on this subject.
What other news can we expect from the project?
The goal is to have the map of Portugal marked with the logo “Loving the Planet” everywhere, signalling the entities that share this common goal. It is by joining hands that we will be able to do something ... If we continue to work wonders in isolation, we will reach nothing. “Rivers” of money keep being spent and things get started all over again: new jobs, new leadership, new programmes ... and it all ends the same way! Global action is necessary! “Loving the Planet” is intended as a ceiling where everyone is welcome, and that's how we believe the project will be developed. Still, to build this machine we need funding! Since it doesn’t come from the State, we plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign.
Do you currently devote much of your effort and time to this goal?
I spend many more hours of my day developing this project, from which I earn nothing, than to my company. I have a missionary attitude towards nature! A few years ago, when the meaning of life began pressing me, I began to notice, at the airport, the planes taking off: I realised that they do so always against the wind, against the difficulty. From then on, whenever I have difficulties, I do not give up, because they are like the wind, a key element for take-off!
The “art” of communicating to the service of the planet
Do you feel that there is still a lack of environmental literacy and, more specifically, on climate change?
I think so, yes! Obviously there is. It is vital to increasingly widen our knowledge of reality and deeply consider this concern. But for me, the focus should be on the details. Ergo, the importance of communication entering the “negotiations” to save the planet. It is fundamental to have a team of journalists specialised in environmental issues. If this happens, as I hope it will, I have no doubt that we will take a big leap forward in terms of environmental literacy.
In what way do documentaries, such as Home documentary, narrated by you in the Portuguese version, contribute to this goal?
That work, released in 2009 and produced by French journalist and environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand, shows the diversity of life on Earth and how humanity is threatening its balance. It remains fully relevant! I will continue to try to make partners that enabled its launch, support its disclosure.
This work was very expensive and complex (with satellite images and the involvement of leading scientists), but we can make things simpler and equally wonderful and impactful. What people who follow my documentaries, every weekend, listen to is thought to detail. Every sentence and every word are chosen so that the message has the desired effect, so that it is fully perceived and no information is lost ... All this is an art! I am available to use it in the service of this cause.
I propose a fund to this effect. Also because there already is an established circuit of international festivals (Cannes and Miami, for instance), where documentary products on the environment can be shown.
With this, we would create a developed aptitude in viewers who would slowly begin to realise the importance of these contents, when compared with the current entertainment content on TV, namely soap operas and reality shows.
How can formal education collaborate with the media to raise environmental awareness?
The paradigm is out: we have to change behaviours and make little things that surgically make a difference. Let me give an example: imagine that a factory gives us thousands of cups, which we distribute in schools. The cups may have stripes as a trademark, and a message - if you brush your teeth with water up to the mark no 15, you are helping the planet - or some other message that makes children, from the very beginning, realise that the excessive spending of water is bad behaviour! The information will begin to settle ...
Another key issue is raising awareness through trainers. I will never forget how impressed I was as a student by a teacher who, from time to time, took us out of the classroom to listen to nature, and the student that registered more sounds (crickets, birds, the waving trees on a windy day) would receive a symbolic prize. It is important to recover this. The technology has got us so drunk that we lose too much time looking at our commodities, and missing the need to go back to naturalness.
In a nearly three-decade long career, do you see some progress in society in terms of environmental awareness?
I do, yes! Never, as much as now, have there been so many forums, exhibitions, interviews, debates and programmes on these subjects, in universities, organisations and society in general. All this is important, but it lacks a poetic approach, charm, natural beauty! It lacks the sense of playfulness, important to create such a collective consciousness, which is imperative for a change in behaviours.
By: Isabel Pereira
For 23 years, since the beginning of SIC (TV channel), I have been in the two weekend programmes telling the stories of plants and animals, of inhospitable regions, of deserts, of mountains, and of oceans ... Stories about the solidarity of some species (like bees) that are closely related with us!
Drawing a parallel, it is almost a catharsis for people feeling “blue”. We talk of ants, of meerkats, of behaviours so interesting that move us, but also of angry nature ... All this combined with fabulous images, the best in the world, and with major productions by the BBC and the National Geographic. In this context, I lived in constant restlessness!
I feel a pressing need to inspire! I feel as if an imperative of conscience leads me to want to say, eye to eye, to whoever listens to me and has done so for many years that it is worth turning this page of an almost divorce with nature, and go from books to practice. And it was in this context, allied to a tremendous concern about climate change, and the fact that we are dangerously jeopardising the future of the planet, that I proceeded with “Loving the Planet”. The world is sick, and we are sick with it. It is necessary to save the millions of beings of all species! Nature demands respect for its values, because nothing is as scientifically experienced in balance and beauty as she is ... That is why “Loving the Planet” was born, to look at the world through the eyes of those who truly love it! This poetry is part of what viewers recognise in me and that is what truly leaves a mark.
What are the main objectives of the project?
No matter how many organisations there are in the world committed to protecting the environment and promoting sustainability, none of the organisations, to date, appeared sufficiently unattached and available to involve everyone and everything with the power of a hug, and with irreplaceable communication tools. “Loving the Planet” serves this purpose!
We want to create an online TV channel, and perhaps another type of medium, but a channel that reaches everyone, and with the contribution of everyone. I dream of creating a building, a neuralgic point of meeting where we can really have headquarters. The programme would be a direct continuum of beautiful things taking place in different parts of the world. All this can provide us with a collective consciousness of belonging to this common home. Basically, we want an honest and positive approach to the planet and its sustainability that excites people. Doing this in Portugal, we would be pioneers!
Would it then be a collaborative project or something with a more rigid structure?
I have a tremendous fear of all that is structured because it enters the field of systematisation. Interestingly, I see a lot of people do wonders in terms of study, beautiful programmes to achieve certain ends, but like everything that is not permeated by such charm and poetry often ends up being defrauded. The spontaneity of things is what makes them beautiful, just like in nature ... Therefore, there is no concern with systematising “Loving the Planet”. I have a lot on my mind, but I'm not in a hurry to put it into practise and structuralising the project. I want things to happen very naturally.
“If we continue to work wonders in isolation, we will reach nothing”
What has already been developed?
The idea is completing its first year and, at the present time, the platform is making its way into the social networks. We have started there, because we know that nowadays they have a force that is recognised by all. I have also used a betting strategy in the video. This format is impressive, it has visibility and raises people's curiosity ... Whenever I make a video it has more views than a photograph or a well-written text!
Nevertheless, I have been talking about “Loving the Planet”: at a conference here, in a trip to a university there, at a get-together, and I began realising that there were people on the ground who could administrate the page, as long as I got used to the production of contents with reasonable quality and within the framework of the project. We have grown by this method, with different institutions and individual employees that, whenever in possession of a little video, put it directly on the page.
In the area of climate change, do you have a strong action axis?
Some institutions have begun asking us to become their media partner. This applies to the SPEA, for example ... And in particular in the chapter on renewable energy, I have several meetings scheduled to increase the publicity with a view to provide deeper awareness among people who are not sufficiently acquainted with this issue. There are immense energies to be tested, many of them well known, but not so deeply that causes people and businesses to adopt new behaviours in what concerns energy consumption. We are attentive to this issue, and we hope to increase disclosure on this subject.
What other news can we expect from the project?
The goal is to have the map of Portugal marked with the logo “Loving the Planet” everywhere, signalling the entities that share this common goal. It is by joining hands that we will be able to do something ... If we continue to work wonders in isolation, we will reach nothing. “Rivers” of money keep being spent and things get started all over again: new jobs, new leadership, new programmes ... and it all ends the same way! Global action is necessary! “Loving the Planet” is intended as a ceiling where everyone is welcome, and that's how we believe the project will be developed. Still, to build this machine we need funding! Since it doesn’t come from the State, we plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign.
Do you currently devote much of your effort and time to this goal?
I spend many more hours of my day developing this project, from which I earn nothing, than to my company. I have a missionary attitude towards nature! A few years ago, when the meaning of life began pressing me, I began to notice, at the airport, the planes taking off: I realised that they do so always against the wind, against the difficulty. From then on, whenever I have difficulties, I do not give up, because they are like the wind, a key element for take-off!
The “art” of communicating to the service of the planet
Do you feel that there is still a lack of environmental literacy and, more specifically, on climate change?
I think so, yes! Obviously there is. It is vital to increasingly widen our knowledge of reality and deeply consider this concern. But for me, the focus should be on the details. Ergo, the importance of communication entering the “negotiations” to save the planet. It is fundamental to have a team of journalists specialised in environmental issues. If this happens, as I hope it will, I have no doubt that we will take a big leap forward in terms of environmental literacy.
In what way do documentaries, such as Home documentary, narrated by you in the Portuguese version, contribute to this goal?
That work, released in 2009 and produced by French journalist and environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand, shows the diversity of life on Earth and how humanity is threatening its balance. It remains fully relevant! I will continue to try to make partners that enabled its launch, support its disclosure.
This work was very expensive and complex (with satellite images and the involvement of leading scientists), but we can make things simpler and equally wonderful and impactful. What people who follow my documentaries, every weekend, listen to is thought to detail. Every sentence and every word are chosen so that the message has the desired effect, so that it is fully perceived and no information is lost ... All this is an art! I am available to use it in the service of this cause.
I propose a fund to this effect. Also because there already is an established circuit of international festivals (Cannes and Miami, for instance), where documentary products on the environment can be shown.
With this, we would create a developed aptitude in viewers who would slowly begin to realise the importance of these contents, when compared with the current entertainment content on TV, namely soap operas and reality shows.
How can formal education collaborate with the media to raise environmental awareness?
The paradigm is out: we have to change behaviours and make little things that surgically make a difference. Let me give an example: imagine that a factory gives us thousands of cups, which we distribute in schools. The cups may have stripes as a trademark, and a message - if you brush your teeth with water up to the mark no 15, you are helping the planet - or some other message that makes children, from the very beginning, realise that the excessive spending of water is bad behaviour! The information will begin to settle ...
Another key issue is raising awareness through trainers. I will never forget how impressed I was as a student by a teacher who, from time to time, took us out of the classroom to listen to nature, and the student that registered more sounds (crickets, birds, the waving trees on a windy day) would receive a symbolic prize. It is important to recover this. The technology has got us so drunk that we lose too much time looking at our commodities, and missing the need to go back to naturalness.
In a nearly three-decade long career, do you see some progress in society in terms of environmental awareness?
I do, yes! Never, as much as now, have there been so many forums, exhibitions, interviews, debates and programmes on these subjects, in universities, organisations and society in general. All this is important, but it lacks a poetic approach, charm, natural beauty! It lacks the sense of playfulness, important to create such a collective consciousness, which is imperative for a change in behaviours.
By: Isabel Pereira