Going Greece
EUROPARC Director and President visit Greece
Visiting Andros
Carol Ritchie, EUROPARC Director, reports on her visit to the Greek Island of Andros in April with EUROPARC President Erika Stanciu in April. They were invited in advance of the Biodiversity 2010 and Beyond conference by the Island’s Mayor, Jannis Glynos, and the Korthi municipality.
We were invited to Andros to meet with the municipality and the new NGO BLUEnature. Headed up by Konstantinos Mentzelopoulos and Dr Candy Alexander, who EUROPARC members may recall were instrumental in the creation of the Tilos Nature Park. Together with Mayor Glynos, they are committed to the development of marine and terrestrial protected areas on and around the island, which, in late April, was beautiful with wild flowers and birdlife in abundance. The island too boasts great cultural heritage and is almost sustainable in its own food and water supplies.
Mayor Glynos is visionary in his commitment to his municipality’s future. An ex-teacher, he has invested in an environmental education centre and ensured the development of a new sustainable climate change research centre on the island by the University of Athens. He and BLUEnature work with the local fishing community with the aim of developing a new marine protected area in the Northern Cyclades (see image). They have recently lodged a LIFE+ project seeking funding to further research and develop their work to achieve this aim.
The EUROPARC Federation will be supporting their endeavours as part of our committment to the development of marine protected areas in Europe and will be seeking input from members and other organisations that may be able to assist. On departure Erika Stanciu said “I am happy to have learned about the initiative for a marine protected area and to see the commitment of the mayor to this initiative”. She thanked Mayor Glynos and BLUEnature for organizing the trip for us and for taking the time to give us so much information about the processes involved in the Tilos project and the ones on-going for the Cyclades.
"Biodiversity protection - beyond 2010. Priorities and options for future EU policy", Athens, 27-28 April 09
The opportunity to visit Andros was precipitated through the invitation from the European Commission DG Environment to attend the Biodiversity Protection - Beyond 2010 conference, in Athens. The conference was opened by President Barossa, indicating the Commission’s commitment to a communications campaign, increasing and completing the NATURA 2000 network. Commissioner Dimas continued by asking delegates to contribute through the conference to proclaiming the message from Athens, which was to go to members states. The Carta di Syracuse on biodiversity, which was recently prepared and agreed by heads of state at the G8 summit, was also presented.
The opportunity to visit Andros was precipitated through the invitation from the European Commission DG Environment to attend the Biodiversity Protection - Beyond 2010 conference, in Athens. The conference was opened by President Barossa, indicating the Commission’s commitment to a communications campaign, increasing and completing the NATURA 2000 network. Commissioner Dimas continued by asking delegates to contribute through the conference to proclaiming the message from Athens, which was to go to members states. The Carta di Syracuse on biodiversity, which was recently prepared and agreed by heads of state at the G8 summit, was also presented.
The 2 days were completed by workshops looking at topics from identifying indicators, though to the economics of ecosystems.
EUROPARC has forged links with Eurosite and WCPA Europe and all agreed to combine our contributions to the draft “message” as it was produced. EUROPARC and Eurosite were also part of the European Habitats forum position paper, which was prepared in advance of the conference. There are clear deficiencies in the commissions deliberation on biodiversity in Europe, as much of the established protected area network is not considered, with too much focus on the Natura 2000 sites. Communication was mentioned throughout the conference, yet their seemed to be little understanding of what this was and no appreciation of community engagement was evident.
We made a number of submissions to the draft conference message but were further disappointed at the 2nd version as it seemed to mention few of the points made by us and many others and also did not truly reflect the sense of urgency on the need to halt the loss of biodiversity that was clear at the conference.
Comments will continue to be received, so EUROPARC, Eurosite and WCPA Europe will carry on raising the profile of all of Europe’s protected areas by resubmitting their comments and continuing to stress the need for funding streams to follow the rhetoric!
Presentations from the conference will be available soon from the DG environment and linked to www.europarc.org. For more information and details and news from the Biodiversity 2010 and beyond, please visit the Eurosite website, who have kindly shared their updates with us.
Gallery
