EU Joins
Effort to Promote “Carpathian Space”
Kiev, 8 December 2006 – The seven member governments
of the Carpathian Convention will meet in Kiev next
week for a three-day conference on protecting the
natural and cultural heritage of the mountainous
areas of Central and Eastern Europe.
Ministers of Environment will
attend a high-level session on the final day to
adopt an action programme setting out their priorities
for achieving greater environmental, social and
economic well-being for the Carpathian region.
“Rich in wildlife and culture,
the Carpathians are a world treasure. Working through
the Convention, the region’s governments and stakeholders
can build a future where the natural environment
can thrive side by side with a modern and dynamic
economy,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director
of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),
which provides the Convention’s interim secretariat.
The Framework Convention on the
Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians,
which entered into force on 4 January of this year,
seeks to strengthen regional cooperation, sustainable
development and environmental protection in the
Czech Republic, Hungary,
Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
The Convention joins together
four EU Members, one acceding country and two EU
neighbors thus providing a unique framework for
European cooperation.
To advance this cooperation on
environment and sustainable development, the European
Commission and its partners are investing €4.5 million
to promote the concept of a “Carpathian Space”.
The aim is to provide a common strategic vision
for the countries and peoples of this historically
marginalized European mountain region.
In their capacity as members of
the Alpine Convention – which as the world’s first
regional mountain convention served as a model –
Austria,
Italy, Liechtenstein and Switzerland
actively supported the Carpathian Convention’s development.
Known formally as the First Meeting
of the Conference of the Parties to the Carpathian
Convention (COP1), the Kiyev conference will consider
new initiatives on sustainable energy, tourism,
transport, agriculture, rural development, forestry,
conservation, landscape diversity, river-basin management,
cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. It
will also adopt a work programme and the rules and
procedures needed for managing the Convention effectively.
Over 50 non-governmental observer
organizations are expected to participate in the
Conference; they will organize the “Carpathian celebrations”
as a cultural event on the final day. Because the
Convention emphasizes public participation, these
organizations and other local stakeholders were
widely consulted in the run-up to the conference.
Spread over some 200,000 square
kilometers (an area 10% larger than the Alps), the
mountainous Carpathian region contains vast tracts
of forest. It is home to wolves, lynx, bison, chamois,
Imperial eagles and other rare and threatened species,
as well as 481 plant species that can be found nowhere
else in the world.
Many small, rural communities
of various ethnicities and nationalities have also
adapted successfully to the mountain environment
over the centuries. Altogether some 16 or 18 million
people call these mountains home.
Key threats to the Carpathians
include growing unemployment and poverty, which
have worsened since the transition from Communism
began some
15 years ago. The result has been
an increase in abandoned land, as well as unsustainable
development patterns, over-exploitation of natural
resources, pollution, deforestation, excessive hunting
and habitat fragmentation.
Note to journalists: The conference
is being held at the Club of the Cabinet of Ministers
of Ukraine (ground floor) 9, Instytutska str. 01008
Kyiv, Ukraine.
