Expert meeting held on 20th - 22nd June 2007 in Madrid (SP)
Workshop: Implementation of the requirements of the Habitats Directive into Forest Management Plans on Natura 2000 sites
The workshop topic “Implementation of the requirements of the Habitats Directive into Forest Management Plans on Natura 2000 sites” was focused on Articles 6.1, 6.3 & 6.4 of the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC and on practical experience. The meeting was attended by 41 participants from 18 Member States, Croatia, Serbia and the Commision. The Spanish Ministry of Environment ensured the preparatory work for the meeting and preparation of the final report. The workshop has shown that there is a great commitment from the participants to put Natura 2000 (the network of protective areas within the Europe in accordance with the Birds Directive and Habitats Directive) in practice, since lots of efforts and actions are going on. All participants have contributed with presentations, either oral (Power Point) or in paper presented before the meeting. Although there was a call for more discussion on practical cases and examples, the participants found this exercise useful and asked for more workshops for the exchange of experience and focusing even in more concrete topics.
Expert meeting held on 4th - 7th September 2007 in Stirling (UK)
Workshop: Achieving conservation objectives within protected areas with the support and involvement of key statutory and non-statutory stakeholders
The meeting was attended by 45 participants from 14 Member States, Croatia and the Commission. The workshop was held at Gartmore House in Stirling, located in the beautiful catchment area of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. The UK Government (inc. Forestry Commission Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage, English Nature and JNCC) organized a number of excursions with practical examples from protected areas.
By the end of the week attendees achieved the following outcomes
1. A thorough understanding of the benefits of the broad approach to stakeholder engagement
2. Knowledge of a number of practical field examples where an open approach to stakeholder engagement has been practised and lessons learned from these examples
3. Knowledge of the different categories of stakeholders
4. Knowledge of the various approaches and techniques which might be applied to stakeholder engagement and how to find out more about this approach
3rd GreenForce Plenary Meeting held on 4th December 2007 in Brussels
Final reports on following 2007 activities were presented and approved. Following proposals for 2008 working plan were discussed:
1. Joint proposal from Austria and Germany - workshop “From paper to practice” will be held on 4th – 6th June in Laufen (D). The workshop is going to deal with minimum standards for management planning on Natura 2000 sites, transparency and participation, implementation of management plans from paper to practice: personal counterparts in N2k sites; conservation and restoration measures, financial instruments.
2. Proposal from the Netherlands - workshop will be held on September or October 2008 discussing “How to achieve policy goals on nature protection laws: evaluation of existing rules; programmed enforcement”.
Participants agreed that the GreenForce Network has to discuss minimum criteria for "green" inspections in order to complement work done in parallel process in IMPEL. Ideally, the NL meeting on compliance programmes shall be enlarged by integrating the CZ proposal to develop minimum criteria for environmental inspections; the Commission is nevertheless prepared to organise a (preparatory) meeting in Brussels to discuss minimum criteria for environmental inspections, to ensure coordination with IMPEL network and timely delivery. The Commission representatives presented an overview on the recent activities of the INECE network. Mrs. Hilda Farkas informed on the current activities of the IMPEL Network and Mrs. Angela Bulagra gave an overview on EAP Task Force activities and ECENA network.
More information about the Greenforce activities can be found on the web page of the network http://ec.europa.eu/environment/greenforce/index_en.htm