“Pan-European co-operation on nature conservation enters a new phase”

Strasbourg, 17 March 2005

On 17 March governments and international organisations from all over Europe celebrated in Strasbourg, France, the 10th Anniversary of the Pan-European biodiversity process that aims to halt the loss of Europe’s biodiversity as a European implementing arm of the worldwide Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In order to better meet the challenge of stopping the decline of Europe’s biodiversity, the 3rd Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe”, held in 1995 in Sofia, Bulgaria, endorsed the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy (PEBLDS).

Governments in the meeting in Strasbourg agreed to better focus political priorities, and to increase interactions with land use, business and financial sectors.

During the meeting, the successful activities of pan-European co-operation were highlighted, including the work on the Pan-European Ecological Network, the work on biodiversity with financial institutions, a biodiversity monitoring framework, and a Service for assisting concrete projects in countries in Central Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.

While reviewing the achievements of PEBLDS so far, the governments concluded that, although important progress had been made, nature, biodiversity and landscape of Europe are still declining. European governments decided some years ago to halt the decline of biodiversity by 2010, but so far the process of deterioration of nature and biodiversity has not been reversed.

During the 10th Anniversary, a multi-stakeholder forum took place with representatives of governments, the European Commission, banks, infrastructure, finance, forest managers and NGOs. The stakeholder forum concluded that a new approach to nature conservation should be adopted in order to be able to reverse the negative trend. The chair of the stakeholder forum summarised this new approach by stressing that nature conservation organisations (both governmental and non-governmental) should look through the eyes of the stakeholders and donor community, seek for common interests instead of areas of potential conflicts, and focus on priorities and activities that really make a difference to people and nature in Europe.

For more information please contact Ms Ivonne Higuero), tel: +41 22 91 78395, E-mail: Ivonne.Higuero@unep.ch, and/or Mr Gianluca Silvestrini, tel. +33 388 413559, E-mail: Gianluca.Silvestrini@coe.int, Joint Secretariat of PEBLDS (UNEP and the Council of Europe)