MOSCOW, June 5 (Itar-Tass) - A new 24-hour SkyLeaf Eco TV channel started Internet broadcasts in Moscow on Wednesday. “This is Russia’s first experience to create a television that will form a careful and correct attitude to environment. This is also one of the world’s first examples of public television,” said Nikolai Drozdov, a well-known TV presenter and traveler and one of the channel’s organizers.
"Nature is our common home. That is why everybody should be concerned with what happens in it and how to save it from trouble,” Drozdov said in a television marathon on Wednesday that was devoted to the new channel’s opening and was timed to coincide with the World Environment Day.
According to Drozdov, the ECO TV will not repeat well-known geographical television projects but will become a public receiving office where “bureaucrats, representatives of various business companies, civil activists and everybody who has what to say about concrete environmental problems and achievements in the field of ecology will be given the floor.” "The TV channel’s target audience includes adults aged 25-60,” Drozdov went on to say.
He also noted that talks were under way to make Eco TV a satellite channel and open correspondent bureaus all across Russia.
"The TV channel will open a second correspondent bureau, after Moscow, in Sochi in June,” Drozdov said.
"We have accumulated a sufficient number of quality and interesting materials about native nature, customs and culture. Such programs seldom make their way to central television channels. Now, young talented authors will have a chance to tell wide audiences about the beauties of our Homeland and its problems,” Sergei Zheleznyak, the deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma and chairman of the People’s Majority of Russia union of public organizations, said.
Anton Kulbachevsky, the head of the Moscow department for the use of natural resources and environment, said that the opening of ECO TV in Russia had become one of the highlights of the Year of Environmental Protection.
“The new media resource will unite the efforts of our enthusiasts who managed to break the negative trend, when the environmental theme was far from being popular, and promote at least some environmental projects,” Kulbachevsky said.
Apart from interviews and experts, the ECO TV, which is available on the popular video service you tube, will also feature reports on expeditions on Russia and educational films on wildlife from the whole world. The channel has obtained rights for running a Russian-Australian program titled “The Flight of the Boomerang”, in which Nikolai Drozdov has taken part.
Twenty-eight Russian companies that develop environmental projects and process garbage will finance the channel’s operation.
The SkyLeaf Eco TV supervisory council includes Sergei Zheleznyak, Anton Kulbachevsky, Natalya Sokolova, Russia’s chief state inspector for environment, and Artur Chilingarov, the first vice-president of the Russian Geographic Society.