29-30 March 2007, Geneva, Switzerland

The European non-governmental organizations present at the meeting – ECNC, IUCN and CEEWEB – officially withdrew from the discussions on the preparation of the Belgrade Conference in the light of their objections to the marginal role that biodiversity currently has on the official programme. The Council decided to support the appeal of the non-governmental organizations, and hopefully this will result in a change of the Belgrade agenda. It was decided to focus the Ministerial segment on the issue of biodiversity and climate.

The Council also decided to refocus PEBLDS towards a pan-European forum for practical cooperation and exchange of views on the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity via the so-called Kyiv Biodiversity Targets. The Biodiversity in Europe conferences, which will take place every two years, will take over the role of the annual Council meetings. This structure will for the time being be served by the joint secretariat of UNEP and the Council of Europe, although further discussions on another structure are to be expected in the near future.


The PEBLDS Council members (Photo: Peter Skoberne).

Besides providing an active input into the above-mentioned discussions, ECNC presented results of the SEENET programme, the European Task Force on Banking, Business and Biodiversity, the PEEN mapping process, and the results of the ‘European regions as champions for biodiversity 2010’ conference (see page 2).

For more information: Rob Wolters, Executive Director ECNC, wolters@ecnc.org