Declaration of the First Regional Session of
the Global Biodiversity Forum for Eastern Europe
to the 5th European Ministries of
the Environment Conference “Environment for Europe”

The joining of the majority of world states to the Convention on Biological Diversity means recognition at the highest level of its primarily importance for human existence;

• despite the biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of bioresources did not become a priority for the governments and donors in the UN ECE countries;
• recognizing value and uniqueness of ecosystems of the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA);
• expressing the concern with further decreasing of biological diversity, transformation and fragmentation of the natural landscapes;
• noting especially inadequate attention to the biodiversity conservation problems in the process of preparation to the 5^th Pan-European Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe” (Kyiv, May 2003);
• recognizing some achievements of the countries of the region in planning and implementation of actions in biodiversity conservation,

The Forum participants call upon the Conference “Environment for Europe” to strongly support:

1. The Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy and its institutional strengthening,
2. The Kyiv Resolution on biodiversity the draft of which has been presented by the Council of PEBLDS;
3. The Statement on Pan-European Ecological Network, the draft of which has been presented by the Council of Europe, ECNC and UNEP;
4. The decisions of the Paris Conference “Agriculture and Biodiversity”;
5. The European Biodiversity Resources Initiative and the relevant activities.

Important steps towards the PEBLDS implementation are:

1. To recognize ECONET development in the regions with highly transformed and fragmented natural landscapes as a priority for financing;
2. To introduce into legislation the issues of cadaster of the lands of highest conservation importance, e.g. into the official statistics, land cadasters, spatial planning, etc.
3. The creation of a special legal basis for further development of Pan-European and National Ecological Networks, including key and buffer areas, ecological corridors and zones of ecological restoration;
4. The development and implementation of common methodological approaches and procedures of biodiversity inventorisation and assessment, using standardized biodiversity and endemism indicators;
5. The further development and regionalization of endangered species Lists, including ones of the Bern and Bonn Conventions as an information and legislative references basis for nature protection on the real bio-geographical grounds.

It is important that whilst considering biological diversity in its essence as a renewable resource, vital for humankind survival, that the recent economical systems transform it into the exhaustible one, and

considering the integration of the problems of biodiversity conservation into financial and business sectors politics as a key problem,

the Forum participants recommend to the Parties of the “Environment for Europe” process to:

1. Include issues of biodiversity conservation into the state programmes of socio-economic development;
2. Implement into official statistics indicators of GDP part spent for biodiversity conservation;
3. Determine clear goals and terms to establish tax and rent policy in the area of biodiversity conservation and use;
4. Develop and mainstream into the land use systems the organizing-rightful and economical mechanisms in order to form the institution of nature-protective easements.
5. Use the estimates of conditionally renewable capital of the nature, as important measure of national, regional and local richness, in the macro- and micro-economical indices of development;
6. Develop ecological-economical biodiversity assessment and apply it into practice when the calculation of compensative payments for the live nature damages harmed by economical actors of various economic branches including in consequence of different ways of the agriculture, spreading the principle “polluter pays” into this kind of production;
7. Support integration of PA’s into socio-economic development and to increase PA’s input into sustainable development in the Northern Eurasia regions, including use of UNESCO Seville Strategy.

The Forum participants draw attention of the Ministers on:

1. The necessity of elaboration of synergy mechanisms of implementation international conventions relevant to biodiversity conservation;
2. The importance of the real enforcement of transboundary cooperation:
3. The high potential for the biodiversity conservation of mechanism for external debts restructurization by “debts for nature” principle; linked to real efforts of states; implementing these aims;
4. The necessity to elaborate economical mechanism for private sector involvement and consolidation of the means belonging to other sectors for ecological rehabilitation of the natural ecosystems owing the high ecological values (in the first term of steppes, broad leaves forests, relict and vulnerable ecosystems); and
5. The importance of accelerating the implementation of adopted and co-agreed decisions on establishing the new Pas, development of ecological networks and performance of the National Strategies and Action Plans in the field of biodiversity conservation as a whole.

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