From 18 & 19 June 2008, the European Conference “Changing climate, changing biodiversity in South-East Europe” took place in Belgrade, Serbia. The conference, which focused on five SEE countries – Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey - was attended by 60 participants from countries in South-East Europe, experts from a number of Western European countries and various international organizations.

The conference confirmed predictions that Southern and South-East Europe (SEE) will be severely affected by climate change. There is a growing body of scientific evidence showing that the effects of climate change on biodiversity and the ‘goods and services’ that ecosystems provide that are already becoming visible, may begin to rapidly increase. This is of great concern, since South-East Europe contains extremely high biodiversity richness, and the impacts of climate are on top of existing threats to biodiversity such as agricultural intensification and development pressure.

It was concluded that the impacts of climate change in the SEE region will jeopardize the implementation of various national and international biodiversity policies, in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity and European biodiversity 2010 targets of reducing or halting the decline of biodiversity by the year 2010.

The conference participants proposed the development – without delay - of a strong and concrete action plan on climate and biodiversity for South-East Europe, while building on ongoing national and international initiatives, including of EU, UN and Council of Europe.

The conference urged that regional cooperation between countries and multi-stakeholders in SEE will be stepped up and that awareness and education actions on climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem services are of vital importance in order to reach the public, politicians and policy-makers and economic sectors.

The conference was organized by ECNC together with REC-Regional Environmental Center and its relevant country offices. Financial support was provided by the AECID, the Spanish International Cooperation Agency for Development through the Azahar programme.

For more information, contact Ana Nieto, nieto@ecnc.org, or look here: http://www.ecnc.org/Overview/Index_766.html.
(Photos: Conference venue and workshop on practical solutions and policy tools, by H. Wijnja)