G R A N T W I N N E R S
On the final day of the European Eco Forum NGO Strategy Meeting recently held in Slovenia (see story), some 150 NGO delegates intently discussed the finer points of the proposed Public Participation Convention to be adopted at the upcoming Environmental Ministerial Conference.At the same time, five NGO leaders gathered in a nearby hotel lobby to informally report on projects which have put public participation into action today - projects which had won special ÒRoad to AarhusÓ grants from the REC during the summer, made possible through the generous support of the Danish government. The goal of the grant program was to enable NGOs to actively participate in the preparations for the Aarhus conference while making sure that citizens have access to information about environmental issues.
Among the NGO leaders present was Albin Keuc, the leader of Slovenian NGO Gaja, who discussed progress made through the project, The Pan-European NGO Coalition Secretariat and Focal Point for Central and Eastern Europe. Keuc's main achievement was organizing the Lake Bled NGO Conference and producing two editions of a newsletter which is keeping hundreds of NGOs in Europe up to date with information relevant to the Environment for Europe process and road to Aarhus. The newsletters discussed subjects including the history of the process and the structure of the upcoming Aarhus conference.
Elena Kolpakova relayed the achievements of Let's Help the River, a Russian NGO which leads a coalition of more than 20 NGOs from the Volga River Basin working to rehabilitate the highly contaminated Volga River. Based in Nizni Novgorod, Russia, the NGO organized a major conference entitled "Volga River Days" in October 1997, attended by some 400 participants from the Russian Federation. The assistant to the governor of the Nizegorodskaya Region, impressed with the conference, officially stated his willingness to host the next Ministerial conference in Nizni Novgorod.
Perhaps a new group of leaders of the Environment for Europe process in the making, these five grant winners were recently joined by five more.
Yuliana Gorelova, with the Moscow-based Biodiversity Conservation Center and leader of the project European Biological Biodiversity: Vision From the East, translated into Russian and distributed to NGOs throughout the NIS the text of the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy (PEBLDS). At the same time, she managed to build up what she fondly refers to as "B-12" - a group of biodiversity experts from Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and elsewhere in the NIS, who will work together to ensure the implementation of PEBLDS in the NIS.
Kliment Mindjov, from Sofia-based Borrowed Nature Association, used his free time at the ECO Forum meeting to confer with his coalition of NGOs throughout CEE working on the project, Independent Assessment with Regard to the Implementation of UNECE. The team will develop and use a standardized method to test the implementation of public participation laws.
Unable to attend the conference were the three remaining grant winners. The first project, led by Tomasz Tatomir of the Wroclaw-based Polish Environmental Law Association, is entitled Working Out Proposals for Cooperation Between Environmental Authorities and NGOs. The second, entitled CEE Business Industry NGOs Contribution to Aarhus led by Roman Vyhnanek of the Czech Environmental Management Center, will evaluate the status of implementation of environmental management and environmental management systems in CEE, with recommendations to the Aarhus Conference. The final project to receive a grant is a joint proposal from Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. Under the leadership of the Hungarian Center for Environmental Studies, the project Eco-Management and Audit Scheme for CEE Municipalities as a Tool for Local Agenda 21, and an Initiative for the Aarhus Conference will modify EMAS standards traditionally used by industry for use by local government. For more info contact bhyman@rec.org.
