News

December 2005

•COP/8

Eight Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP/8) will take place in Curitiba, Brazil from 20 – 31 March, 2006. Officially, the Republic of Macedonia will be represented by Mr. Zoran Sapuric, Minister of the Environment and Physical Planning and Mrs. Menka Spirovska, CBD focal point.

MAKMONTANA POSITION:

MAKMONTANA expect that The Second Regional Conference EnE06 "Environment for Europe" should establish closer links between the Pan European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy (PEBLDS) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The conference should also provide a forum for the regional preparation for the Meetings of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD. Representatives of the governments in the region should be able to discuss the priority issues of the CBD and shape the positions that will eventually be taken at the Eight Meeting of the Conference of the Parties. Supporting the participation of environmental NGO representatives on this conference will give make the able to provide their input in the decision-making processes of the PEBLDS and the CBD.
So MAKMONTANA is seeing the conference as an opportunity for enhancing the complementarities between the PEBLDS and the CBD in the pan European region and influence the global biodiversity agenda from a regional perspective.
The conference should strengthen the efforts of the region to implement the CBD, address the goals of the strategic plan and achieve the agreed objective to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010.
MAKMONTANA would like to see improved participation of the Balkan countries in the decision-making processes of the PEBLDS as well as the CBD.
The outcomes of the conference should strengthen and improve regional cooperation in the area of biodiversity and enhance the profile of biodiversity in the region and at the global level.

Following are the issues that MAKMONTANA would like to discuss:

- Progress in implementation of the Strategic Plan and follow-up on progress towards the 2010 target and relevant Millennium Development Goals (global targets and related measures, such as monitoring and indicators and trends of biodiversity);
- Follow up of the Kyiv Resolution on Biodiversity in the PEBLDS programme of work: Implementation of action plans;
- Forest and Biodiversity action plan;
- Pan European Ecological Network action plan;
- Biodiversity Monitoring and Indicators action plan;
- Public Participation and Awareness action plan
- Protected areas;
- Biodiversity and climate change: guidance to promote synergy among activities for biodiversity conservation, mitigating or adapting to climate change and combating land degradation;

As regarding to the Eight Conference of the Parties (COP 8) of the Convention on Biologic Diversity, which will take place between 13 and 30 March, in Curitiba, Brazil, MAKMONTANA suggests to other NGO’s to use the side events, such as the Civil Society Forum, a huge space for networking of many organizations that can influence politically on negotiations and positions of the various countries. To strengthen CBD and the Cartagena Protocol, MAKMONTANA as a national NGO would like to make sure that civil society participates in an effective way in official negotiation discussions and in parallel events of civil society during MOP and COP by means of:
- Elaboration of positions and strategies, and effective intervention of NGOs and social movements during MOP and COP;
- Identification of main issues of discussion during MOP and COP to improve networking, the organization of side events, and of events during the Civil Society Forum;
- Strengthening of the voice of social movements, to highlight the existing conflict between the CBD and WTO regimes, and to strengthen the importance of the agenda for sustainable use of natural resources, the right of access to genetic resources and the guarantee of traditional knowledge upon the agenda of free trade and neoliberalism;
- Creation of networking spaces for networks and organizations from all across the world;
- Mobilization and awareness-raising campaigns, for delegates, society and the media.

• The Second Regional Conference EnE06 "Environment for Europe" will be held in Belgrade (Serbia and Montenegro) from June 5-7 2006. Thematic areas of Conference are: Sustainable Development, Environment and EU Accession in related fields. Official languages are Serbian and Serbian / Languages of former Yu Republics, without simultaneous translation. Instruction on paper preparation and registration (40 EURO), as well as other relevant information, you could find on www.ambassadors-env.org or using Email: office@ambassadors-env.org
Due date for a paper is January 31st 2006! You could present your scientific / analytical paper, present performances of your institution/company with support of conference preparation, provide donation / charity contributing to yours company positive image, active participate, as well as to hear NGO FORUM EfE07 voice towards BELGRADE 2007 Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe.

• 4th Annual meeting of Environmental NGO’s in the Republic of Macedonia

The 4th Annual Meeting of Environmental NGOs in the Republic of Macedonia was held in Ohrid (4–6 November, 2005) with the participation of more than 50 NGOs, as well as the officials from the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning and international organizations.

For a special session Makmontana prepared a background material for other NGOs on CBD decisions and pointed out on the Ecosystem Approach as a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way.

Makmontana also gave the following comments on the new Law on Nature Protection in the Republic of Macedonia:

The new Law on Nature Protection should be understood as implementation of the obligations that the Republic of Macedonia undertook by signing and ratifying of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU, but also as approximation to the EU Environmental Acquis. The Law on Nature Protection regulates the specifics that relate to the protection of the biological diversity and the landscape diversity, the protection of the natural heritage within and outside of Protected Areas and the protection of Minerals and Fossils.

An objective of this Law should be the contribution to the protection of the biological diversity through the protection of the natural habitats and the wild fauna and flora on the territory of the Republic of Macedonia. The measures prescribed within this Law should lead to the achievement of a favourable conservation status of the natural habitats and the species of the wild fauna and flora. Further, the objective the Law should be development and strengthening of the cooperation for the prevention of the degradation of nature, as support to the environmental stability, but also cooperation for the purpose of protection of the natural resources and the protection of the biological diversity and exchange of scientific data.

The Law on Nature Protection should provide the basis for the full implementation of the following agreements of which the Republic of Macedonia is a party:

- Convention on Biological Diversity (Rio de Janeiro, 1992);
- Protocol on Bio-Safety (Carthagena, 2000);
- Convention on the Water Habitats of International importance especially as Habitats to Water Fowl (Ramsar, 1971);
- Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of the wild Fauna and Flora (Washington D.C. 1973);
- European Convention on the Protection of the European Wild Species and Natural Habitats (Bern, 1979);
- European Convention on the Protection of Migratory Wild Species (Bonn, 1979);
- Convention on the Protection of world Cultural and Natural Heritage (Paris, 1972);
- European Convention on the Protection of Landscape (Florence, 2000).

extract of the report on the Fourth annual meeting of association of citizans that work in the field of environmental protection ... doc 143Kb

• GMO – Free Balkans Conference

The GMO – Free Balkans Conference (Food safety, Biodiversity, Sustainable Agriculture) was held from 25-27 October, 2005 in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Participants from different Balkan countries were invited to become acquainted with one another, to exchange information and to act together against genetic modified organisms (GMO) in the Balkans.

In a global system the big trans-national food-companies, by using the technology of genetic engineering and for profit interest, are on the way, to monopolize agriculture completely, setting into unpredictable risks the health of consumers, the environment and sustainable farm systems, and the European Commission opens the door for cultivation and consumption of GMOs, some governments begin to adjust the industry pressure. The Balkan countries have to resist, organizing the answer of civil society. They agreed to work together, coordinating the scientific knowledge, public information precaution, mutual information and the activities.

Makmontana – Association for Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions took active part to this conference and pointed out the following:

There are great uncertainties as concerns ecological risks of GMOs. These uncertainties are the result not only of the fact that there is a lack of reliable data but also the fact that natural systems are extremely complex. Therefore it is of decisive importance to determine under what premises a predicted or observed effect of the GMO on the environment can be classified as "ecological damage" and therefore as not tolerable.

Using an asset-related approach in defining ecological damage is recommended. Using this approach, valuable environmental assets should be understood to be biological diversity as specified by the Convention of Biological Diversity.

In the EU Sixth Environmental Action Programme member States committed themselves to “Protecting, conserving, restoring and developing the functioning of natural systems, natural habitats, wild flora and fauna with the aim of halting desertification and the loss of biodiversity [by 2010], including diversity of genetic resources, both in the European Union and on a global scale”.

The Biosafety Protocol has its roots in of the Convention on Bilogical Diversity (CBD), especially Article 19.3 which obliged Parties to the CBD to consider the need for and modalities of a protocol setting out appropriate procedures in the field of the safe handling and use of any living modified organism (LMO) that may have adverse effect on biodiversity. The three objectives of the CBD are: the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of the genetic resources.

The protocol is one of the tools for implementing the Convention, especially with regard to the provisions to regulate, manage or control risks associated with transfer, handling and use of LMOs that may have adverse effect on biodiversity, focusing on their transboundary movement. The CBD Strategic Plan, which was adopted by the sixth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP), contains a number of strategic objectives related to the Protocol including, among others, to ensure that by 2010:

• The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is widely implemented
• Every Party has a regulatory framework in place and functioning to implement it
• All Parties have available adequate capacity as well as increased resources and technology transfer to implement it, and that
• Every party to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is promoting and facilitating public awareness, education and participation in support of the Protocol.

Decision VII/30 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defines biodiversity loss "as the long-term or permanent qualitative or quantitative reduction in components of biodiversity and their potential to provide goods and services, to be measured at global, regional and national levels".

The CBD-information paper UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/9/INF/26 recognises that the notion of biodiversity loss is complex and concludes as a basis for developing indicators that biodiversity loss can consist of:

• A decline in extent, condition or sustainable productivity of ecosystems
• A decline in abundance, distribution or sustainable use of species populations, and extinctions
• Genetic erosion

The basic prerequisite for assessing ecological damage is having baselines and GMO-free reference areas. Therefore it is necessary to keep sufficiently large areas free of GMOs.

As a common statement from this Conference, all participants agreed that Balkans should be a GMO free region and that priority should be given on sustainable agriculture, a modern form of agriculture with a future for farmers, communities, consumers, biodiversity and environment.

October 2005

•National Forestry Policy and Strategy

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy of the Republic of Macedonia in February this year undertook a project financed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to formulate the first National Forest Policy and Strategy. Recently, on the 25th October 2005, the first draft National Forest Development Strategy was distributed and a National Consultative Meeting was held on which Makmontana participated with its representative.

Mekmontana, being already a part of the ongoing process: member of the Steering Committee of the project and some of its members are in the Working Group, had already influenced the formulation of the draft National Forest Development Strategy. In example: the Sustainable Forest Management definition was accepted and implemented in the strategy paper and the Ecosystem Approach of the Convention of the Biological Diversity was accepted to apply for the Sustainable Forest Management in the Republic of Macedonia in compliment of Decision V/6 article 2 and Decision III/12: Programme of work for terrestrial biological diversity: Forest biological diversity, Annex: Input to the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, Related recommendation (b).

In continuum with the aim of Makmontana to have a Forest Strategy that will be more in balance with the needs of the nature conservancy and the international treaties and conventions that apply to forests and nature, on the National Consultative Meeting submitted several propositions to be taken into consideration.

The propositions submitted were:

The name of the strategy to be changed to "National Strategy for Sustainable Development of Forestry".

In the section 5 Biological aspects, sub section 5.2 Protection of the Biological Diversity, Makmontana proposes the following measures to be taken into account, that are in correlation to the Decision VI/22: Forest biological diversity and the Programme elements of the Annex: Expanded programme of work on forest biological diversity of the Convention of Biological diversity.

1. To conserve and restore plant and animal diversity and to protect rare and endangered species and ecosystems;
2. To conserve and establish a suitable living environment for all indigenous species;
3. To designate the habitats of particular importance for plants and animals and the areas important for protection of forest biological diversity;
4. To guarantee the conservation and development of aquatic ecosystems in the forest environment;
5. To ensure complete protection of forests in the IUCN Protected Areas I and II;
6. To establish a network of forest gene reserves of forest areas and individual trees in order to conserve and increase biological diversity of forests, based on expert criteria and on appropriate characterization and documentation on indigenous populations of forest genetic resources.

August 2005

• Elaboration and finalization of a management plan for the Pelister National Park

The Pelister Mountain Conservation Project (PMCP) is a project run by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning, and with technical support of Pro Natura-Friends of the Earth in Switzerland. Overall goal of the project is to contribute to the reinforcement of a state-civil society dialogue in the context of natural resources management. During the first phase of the Project, a draft management plan has been developed for Pelister National Park, though incompletely and without formal legal base.

The new Law on Nature Protection (2004) provides the necessary basis for Management Plan development (articles 73, 98 to 102). Following this, during the second phase in 2005 activities were taken towards the elaboration of a clear concept of management and finalization of the Pelister National Park management plan accordingly.

Makmontana – Association for Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions in the Republic of Macedonia in partnership with the relevant stakeholders and trough a participatory process took active part during the elaboration and finalization of the Pelister National Park management plan.

Makmontana stressed out the importance of incorporating the CBD principles in the Pelister National Park management plan, and pointed out the Convention as the first global instrument taking a comprehensive approach to the problems of conserving the world’s biodiversity and to using its biological resources sustainably. The Convention recognizes that networks of protected areas are central to conserving biological diversity. Two vital provisions, among others, relate to protected areas:

1. Under Article 6, each Party has to develop national strategies, plans or programs for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and to integrate them into other relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programs and policies;
2. Under Article 8(a), each Party has to establish a system of protected or areas where special measures are taken to conserve biodiversity; this is followed up by other clauses in Article 8 on protected areas.

The Convention is best seen as providing a framework for conserving biodiversity (as well as for achieving other goals, such as on access to genetic resources). Most of its Articles set out policies that Parties should follow, such as on planning protected area networks or controlling the spread of introduced species, rather than establishing precise obligations (as does the World Heritage Convention) or setting targets (as do the EU Directives). The Convention provides a good opportunity for Parties to update and bring into line a wide range of biodiversity-related policies, and in particular to make the linkage between policies on protected areas and policies on other sectors of national life.

During the participatory process of the finalization of the Pelister National Park management plan, Makmontana introduced to the relevant stakeholders, the concept of Ecosystem approach as a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way;

Currently, the Pelister National Park management plan is under public hearing until December 30th, 2005, and after this period it will be submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning of the Republic of Macedonia for official adoption.

June 2005

• On the Balkan Convention Initiative Meeting (17.06.2005), Makmontana sugeested for the Balkan to be pursued policies aiming at conservation, sustainable use and restoration of biological and landscape diversity, which is in corelation on the Decision V/6 of the Conference of the Parties for the Ecosystem approach, especially with its Principle 10.

• Makmontana elected Dragi Pop-Stojanov as a representative in the steering committee of the project for "Institutional development and capacity building in forestry and forest industry subsectors" or The Macedonian National Forest Policy and Strategy. One of his roles will be to secure the incorporation of the Ecosystem Approach designed on the sixt Conference Of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the decisions on Forest Biocogical Diversity.