The Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy
In October 1995, ministers from 54 countries in the UN-Economic Commission for Europe region endorsed the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy. The purpose of the Strategy is to maintain and enhance Europe's biological and landscape diversity through the achievement by 2015 of four specific aims:
- that threats to Europe's biological and landscape diversity are reduced substantially
- that the resilience of Europe's biological and landscape diversity is increased
- that the ecological coherence of Europe as a whole is strengthened
- that full public involvement in the conservation of biological and landscape diversity is assured.
The Strategy is a Pan-European response to support the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity. At the same time, it introduces a coordinating and unifying framework for strengthening and building on the wide range of existing initiatives relating to the conservation of biological and landscape diversity. The Strategy also aims to integrate ecological considerations more effectively into all relevant socio-economic sectors and to increase public participation in, and awareness and acceptance of, conservation interests.
In practice, the longer term Pan-European goals of the Strategy will be achieved in the first place through supporting the full implementation of the many existing initiatives for conserving biological and landscape diversity in Europe, which are vital to achieving the aims of the Strategy. Supplementary actions to identify and fill any gaps, to ensure that other initiatives meet their objectives, to strengthen the integration of biological and landscape diversity consideration into other sectors and to increase public involvement will be developed as appropriate through the Strategy's five-year Action Plans.
The Strategy Guide is an information network on the Internet, promoting the exchange of information, providing tools for communication and a framework for monitoring progress of implementation of the Pan-European Strategy. The concept follows a distributed approach, i.e. a general top layer of information maintained by the Strategy Secretariat and the European Centre for Nature Conservation (ECNC), and specific Action Theme information to be maintained by the respective Action Theme leaders. Further information about the Strategy can be accessed at: www.strategyguide.org.
Page last modified: 12 January 2000