Fairy Tales about the Environment

Ever since joining the European Union in 2004, Hungary - my native country - has been finding creative ways to leverage the funding it can provide for all sorts of projects. One of our most recent accomplishments was winning an environmental award. Even though it does not have direct monetary benefits right now, the more publicity about biodiversity issues, the better.

The competition was organized by the Green Spider Network, "an active network of communication and information officers from environment ministries and national environmental agencies in Europe." Each year, this organization has a "best practices" contest regarding environmental communication.

Hungary's submission described a fairy-tale writing contest and a biodiversity weekend. The title of the competition was ‘Are there still any sky-high bean stalks at your village?’ The title is a reference to a wide-known fairy-tale called "Jack and the bean stalk." Children (and adults as well) were invited to compose a short story related to biodiversity.

The award winning piece was titled "The Opera of the Vegetables." The story goes something like this: the emperor of the vegetables decides that his minions should be just as educated as fruits, and in order to reach that, they will build an Opera house. The first performance turns into a disaster though, as the tomato (who has the lead role in the play) threatens the audience with a rabbit first, then with fake ketchup. After the incident the emperor decides that the vegetables would be better off building a library. What's your story?

I really like these kind of initiatives. The contest shows the importance of education about environmental issues. Maybe if we convey environmental problems early enough, we won't raise an array of skeptical leaders for future generations.