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Please take a moment to read the following letter to Rt Hon Tessa Jowell, MP. If you agree with it and are willing to add your name to it please email me back ASAP. So far around 50 HE geographers have signed up from 7 universities. We need at least 101 so your name really could make a difference. This letter will be sent to Tessa Jowell and the media to launch a national petition. Dear Ms Jowell, If the media does not acknowledge the expertise of modern geographers it is increasingly putting society at risk from a wide range of environmental, social, economic and political threats. It is vital that all young people receive a strong geography education if they are to become active citizens in a world where climate change, sustainable energy, terrorism, poverty, immigration and natural disasters regularly hit the headlines. Geography plays a unique role in education showing how the physical and human worlds interrelate and humans manage the frequent conflicts that arise as nature strikes people and people strike nature. The major UK media organisations currently fail to recognise the vital role of geography. Despite being dependent on geographical skills and content, the BBC and Channel 4 have no commissioning editors for geography as they do for science, history and other subject areas. Rarely are geographers chosen to present distinctively geography programmes. Some media organisations, particularly newspapers such as the Guardian do an even greater disservice to geography by directly attacking the subject, even when there is the opportunity to support and promote it. Whilst schools, colleges and universities have an obvious role to play in ensuring that this geographic entitlement is fulfilled, the major media organisations also have a responsibility to this generation and all future generations in ensuring that: a) they recognise and publicise the vital role played by geography and geographic knowledge; b) they actively use geographers within their organisations to strengthen public understanding of local, national and global issues. In this letter we call for major broadcasters and newspaper publishers to employ geography editors and to produce both implicitly and explicitly labelled geography content for broadcast, in print and online. Geography is in a unique position to act as a bridge between subject areas using spatial knowledge, understanding and technologies coupled with distinctive concepts to make sense of the world. It is now time for the media to take full advantage of this capacity and stop neglecting this vital subject and we would like to invite you to do everything in your power to encourage this change. Yours sincerely, PLEASE DO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT! Many thanks, Daniel Raven-Ellison David Rayner Give Geography its Place, www.passion4geography.co.uk