Results and follow-up to European Nature Conservation Year 1995 (ENCY '95)
Recommendation 1310
(1996)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text adopted by the
Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 7 November
1996 (see Doc. 7696, report
of the Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning and Local
Authorities, rapporteur: Mr Hardy).
1. Almost thirty-five years after
the Parliamentary Assembly's initiative aimed at establishing ongoing European
co-operation in the field of nature conservation, the environment
has become one of the key areas of work of several international
organisations.
2. Important conferences such as the Earth Summit in Rio (June
1992) at a global level, and the 3rd Pan-European Conference of
Ministers of the Environment (Sofia, October 1995) at a European
level, have given governments the opportunity to commit themselves
to policies specifically designed to conserve our resources and
to guarantee the ecologically sustainable development of the planet.
3. In spite of this growing awareness, which is already a significant
step forward in addressing these problems, the measures implemented
by governments so far rarely match the seriousness of the threats
to our resources or to commitments made in this area.
4. The Assembly firmly believes that, as in other areas, responsibility
for environmental protection lies with each and every one of us
and therefore that all sections of society should assume their part.
5. In this connection, raising awareness and providing information
and education on environmental problems are an indispensable element
of all environmental policies.
6. The Assembly therefore welcomes the fact that the Council
of Europe organised a second nature conservation campaign, twenty-five
years after the first, and also the fact that this campaign focused
on environmental protection outside protected areas, that is, where
the human activities which are the main cause of environmental degradation
take place.
7. European Nature Conservation Year 1995 (ENCY '95) was a great
success in the forty-two European countries which participated in
the event and provided an opportunity to reaffirm the Council of
Europe's leading role in the field of nature conservation. Moreover,
it undoubtedly helped to raise awareness of nature conservation
problems in Europe and to convince people that, as with environmental
policies in general, nature conservation calls for an integrated
approach and needs to become a component of sectoral policies such
as transport policy or policies in the field of public works, agriculture,
tourism, and industrial development.
8. It is important to ensure, however, that some of the activities
undertaken and synergies created have lasting effects and make a
long-term contribution to more effective nature conservation.
9. In this connection, it is important, with due regard to the
powers and responsibilities of the various parties, to foster dialogue
with non-governmental organisations working in the field of environmental
protection so that we can draw upon their experience and expertise
and also, through them, be in direct contact with society at large.
10. In this context, the Assembly can welcome the fact that the
European Ministers of the Environment, meeting in Sofia for their
third pan-European conference, approved the Pan-European Biological
and Landscape Diversity Strategy which had been prepared by the
Council of Europe, and that the latter was asked to implement this
strategy in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP).
11. Nevertheless, as with ENCY '95, successful implementation
of the strategy will largely depend on the synergies created through
the combined action of different groups involved, be they decisionmakers,
economic operators or non-governmental organisations.
12. Moreover, the Assembly is fully aware and pleased that, out
of concern for efficiency, European and international organisations
working in the field of the environment are sharing tasks and that
the Council of Europe's pioneering role and experience in nature
conservation have naturally singled it out as the body responsible
for pan-European co-operation in this field.
13. However, it regrets that the role assigned to the Council
of Europe in the "Sofia process" is limited to nature conservation
which, in addition, is not a priority of the ministers.
14. It regrets in particular that the Council of Europe's experience
of conventions, and notably of drafting instruments concerning environmental
protection, has not been recognised as a possible contribution to
the "Sofia process", particularly in the preparation of the convention
on access to environmental information and public participation
in environmental decision-making.
15. Similarly, it is equally deplorable that the governments which
gave the Council of Europe the authority to prepare the Convention
on Civil Liability for damage resulting from activities dangerous
to the environment, which they adopted and opened for signature
at the Conference of European Ministers of Justice in Lugano in 1993,
have still not signed and ratified this instrument.
16. Nevertheless, the Council of Europe must carry out the terms
of reference given to it by the ministers in Sofia, act, as appropriate,
upon the conclusions of and the expectations raised by ENCY '95
and assert a role equivalent to that of other organisations in the
implementation of a pan-European environment policy.
17. The budgetary decisions to be taken should therefore clearly
reflect a determination to see the Council of Europe play an active
role in its specific fields of competence and to make use of the
potential represented by its long experience of working in these
fields.
18. It has to be recognised, however, that, at least in the current
situation, the resources made available to this sector do not seem
to demonstrate this determination and that the funds which were
available to these activities before they were incorporated into
the strategy or before the events of ENCY '95 have remained unchanged.
19. In this connection, while reaffirming its concern to see that
the Bern Convention obtains the financial resources and staff which
would allow it to take on fully the role assigned to it in the Pan-European
Biodiversity and Landscape Strategy, the Assembly is deeply disappointed
to see that no additional resources have been made available to
this convention.
20. This lack of resources is all the more regrettable given that
the Council of Europe could, in keeping with its role vis-à-vis
the countries of central and eastern Europe, usefully offer these
countries the benefit of its experience in order to help them meet
the legislative or administrative conditions needed to implement
the conventions to which they are party.
21. The Assembly therefore recommends that the Committee of Ministers:
21.1 take appropriate follow-up action
on the positive results of ENCY '95, in particular by fostering closer
relations with non-governmental organisations so as to take full
advantage of the contribution which they can make in this area and
by ensuring that certain priorities of ENCY '95, such as environmental
education projects, become long-term elements in the Council of
Europe's work;
21.2 take the necessary measures to give the Council of Europe,
within the limits of its specific fields of competence, a role equivalent
to that of the other organisations involved in the "Sofia process"
and, in order to achieve this:
a increase
the resources allocated to the implementation of the Pan-European
Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy in order to furnish
tangible evidence of its commitment to this sector;
b help the countries of central and eastern Europe to meet
the conditions for the application of the conventions to which they
are party, through specific and appropriate projects;
c substantially increase the resources available to the
Standing Committee of the Bern Convention, thereby demonstrating
a real determination to make this instrument one of the key conventions in
the field of nature conservation;
d invite the governments of member states to sign and ratify
the Convention on Civil Liability for damage resulting from activities
dangerous to the environment, which was opened for signature in
Lugano in 1993;
e ensure that the Council of Europe actively participates
in the preparatory work for the 4th Pan-European Conference of Ministers
of the Environment to be held in Denmark in 1998, and particularly
in the preparation of the convention on public participation in
environmental decisionmaking.
