Welcome to the CERI webpage!
Carpathian EcoRegion Initiative is a coalition of NGOs and research institutes working towards a common vision for conservation and sustainable development of the Carpathians.
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Become a member
Membership is open to NGOs, academic and research institutes committed to sign up to the CERI vision statement and accepting the CERI Statutes.
Support us
All support will be used within the CERI vision, for conservation of the unique Carpathian Biodiversity.
for any kind of cooperation or support
Provide us with your pictures/photographs to be used for free for the promotion of Carpathian region and conservation of biodiversity
Initiate cooperation with CERI network, contact us to elaborate common project
Take advantage of CERI expertise and involve CERI experts into your projects
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Working groups
CERI works through targeted projects and international working groups. The present working groups (WG) are:
coordinated by Anna Guttova, CERI Secretariat
coordinated by Jan Seffer, Daphne IAE, Slovakia
coordinated by Tamara Malkova, Green Dossier, Ukraine
coordinated by Miroslav Tadic, Endemit, Serbia
coordinated by Nenad Robajac, Ecolibri Bionet, Serbia
coordinated by Milan Janak, Daphne IAE, Slovakia
(janak@
daphne.sk
)
coordinated by Hildegard Meyer, WWF DCP, Austria
(hmeyer@
wwfdcp.org
)
For more information please contact the WG coordinators.
Biodiversity WG (BD WG)
Main goal of BDWG is creation of active International network of CERI members with effective internal cooperation and interaction in the sphere of conservation, restoration and sustainable use of the Carpathian biodiversity. Among main tasks of the group should be mentioned conservation of endangered, endemic and relict species of the Carpathian flora and fauna, large carnivores in particular; formation of ecological network and development of protected areas network in the Carpathian region. All activities are directly or indirectly related to the implementation of the Carpathian Convention, namely to the Article 4: Conservation and sustainable use of biological and landscape diversity. In the context of Carpathian Convention important task of the group is participation in the preparation and commenting of Biodiversity protocol.
Biodiversity Information System WG (BIS WG)
BIS WG is responsible for the development of the Carpathian Biodiversity Information System (CBIS). Development of CBIS will be based on existing biodiversity data in Carpathian countries which can be in database format (minor amount) and in published or non-published information sources. They will be sent to Central Database/GIS (CD-GIS) and stored in appropriate format. Structure of fields in CD will be restricted to minimal necessary content – crucial information is name (species or habitat), date, location and source of data.
Information threshold on location is orographical unit as it was used for identification of Carpathian biodiversity important areas. More precise information on locality of species/habitat (coordinates, point, lines, polygons) will be asked for priority species and habitats. Aditional spatial information linked to CD from national and/or international sources (CORINE Landcover, DTM, satellite images, etc.) will be used for data analyses and mapping outputs.
Clearing house mechanism will be developed to facilitate scientific and technical cooperation both nationally and internationally. The clearing house will gain information from CD-GIS. Full access to information will be available to organisations which will significantly contribute to CD-GIS, CERI members and nature conservation organisations. Other clients and public will have access to aggregated data information.
Organisation of data collection will be based on organizations with relevant experience and capacity in the particular Carpathian country. Capacity of CERI members to manage database/GIS will be improved through trainings organised by DAPHNE. CD-GIS will be established in DAPHNE based on already built partial databases and available GIS layers. Methodologies and software environment for data transformation, controls and analyses will be created. Establishment of initial CD-GIS linked to clearing house will be finished until end of 2007.
Communication WG (Com WG)
CERI may underline the importance to further building on the first outcomes of the Communication WG activities in 2006. Some of the communication activities were assessed very positive, some raised further questions and proposals for improvements, which will be implemented in 2007. Among others the activities of Communication WG will include:
• Preparation of CERI Newsletter in an effective way - by communication between CERI members;
• Providing space for discussions on different points through the mailing list
• Finalization of the CERI Communication Strategy
Environmental Policy and Rural Development WG (EPRD WG)
The questions on which the EPRD WG is trying to find answers are turned to the main problems (threats and obstacles) in the Carpathian region from the policy and rural development point of view and possibilities for actions to preserve the value of the mountains. The EPRD WG also analyses possible partnerships needed to be built to protect the nature and improve life in the Carpathians. EPRD WG focuses on identification of CERI’s role in the region besides governments, business sector, other networks and Carpathian people and the results will be incorporated into the CERI Development Strategy. In order to achieve these objectives, the EPRD WG will organise meeting of its members in the frame of the CERI General Assembly 2007.
Environment and Sustainable Development Education WG (ESDE WG)
In order to acknowledge the importance of environmental education, based on its relevance to the Carpathian Convention (Article 13), and based on the interest of so many CERI members in this subject and the success of CERI with environmental education in the past, CERI members decided to form Environmental and Sustainable Education Working Group. The so called ESDE WG had its first coordination meeting in Belgrade in September 2006. The aim of the meeting was to initiate the development of Carpathian Workbook on Environmental Education, which will specify the priorities and summarize approaches to environmental education at the Carpathian-region level for various kinds of target groups. Based on the Workbook, the national sets of trainings/seminars and educational actions will be organised in the upcoming years. CERI members from Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Serbia adopted the Program for education for sustainable development in the Carpathian region at the seminar held in Belgrade. The participants also agreed on the content of the Workbook which will be used for implementation of this Program. The program will be implemented, mainly by NGOs, through seminars in the local communities of the Carpathian region and will be focused on the local stakeholders representatives primarily (local government officials, journalists, teachers, industry and business representatives, other NGO representatives etc). Later on, when the Program is well established in local communities, it will be possible to hold seminars for specific, smaller target groups. Resources provided by leading implementing NGOs as well as local communities, will make it possible to hold seminars for pupils and students.
Externally, activities will include educating NGO representatives to disseminate environmental information and make their work more transparent, as well as preparing environmental information and education materials, taking as much advantage of the website as possible to improve channels of communication and distribution of environmental information.
In 2007 the ESDE WG will build a Network of Carpathian Environmental Educators by collecting the contacts on the Educational organisations and ecocentres within the whole region in order to become a component of the Carpathian Clearinghouse, what will provide space for further cooperation and common projects among the Carpathian countries in the future. ESDE WG members will work on the preparation of a project proposal to raise funds for the Carpathian Workbook on Environmental Education and further national activities linked to it.
Management Planning WG (MP WG)
Preserving biodiversity means almost always balancing the conservation requirements of species and/or habitats with socio-economic use and development. This process, which can be generally regarded as nature resource management, certainly needs serious planning. It shall include analysis and evaluation of relevant natural and socio-economic features to determine goals and measures for the management work. As it is usually undertaken for specific site(s), result of such planning is the site management plan. There are lot of approaches how to undertake management planning, so as the results of such planning undertaken for similar sites may differ substantially. Nature does not respect administrative borders neither local planning peculiarities.
To promote development of common management planning approaches and provide platform for exchange of knowledge the Management Planning Working Group has been established within CERI. It currently includes experts from Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine, but it is open for all Carpathian countries to contribute to envisaged goals. The first MPWG meeting was focused on discussing national management planning approaches in the Carpathian countries, experience and expertise in management planning within CERI, identification of obstacles for the conservation of Carpathians resulting from management planning and formulation of principles and plan for development of common management approach for Carpathians.
Preliminary analysis of present status of management planning in Carpathian countries done in 2006 have shown, that there are no major discrepancies in terms of basic content of the nature management plans. Most countries are familiar and are using existing approaches developed by Ramsar Convention. Although there are different views and perceptions of the content of the management plan in detail as well as different approaches to the process of management plan development, in some countries the management plans are not required by national legislation. However most of the CERI members considered the need for basic standards for nature management plans and the process how they are developed to be set. This is of crucial importance also with regard to common conservation approaches for the habitats and species in Carpathians those are in need of conservation. Many of them represent species and habitats of Community Importance for which transboundary conservation approaches need to be introduced. With this regard more detailed evaluation of national management planning approaches is going to be done as first step.
Preliminary analysis of present status of management planning in Carpathian countries and analysis of capacities and experience of CERI members in management planning done in 2006 have shown that the perception and experience with management planning is very different among countries. That is why as a first step in setting the common standards for management planning in Carpathian region the training in nature management planning is needed. Furthermore the analysis have shown that more CERI members are at least partially working with the issue of nature management planning and are also interested in training in nature management planning.
Tourism WG (TWG)
The CERI Tourism WG has been established to support high quality tourism with special focus on ecotourism in the Carpathians, which has an enormous potential to bring together nature conservation and rural development. The working group consists of CERI members from all over the Carpathians.
At the first workshop held on October 2-3 2006, not only members of the CERI Tourism WG, but also interested people working in the field of ecotourism or in Protected Area Authorities, came together to actually set up the group and discuss future plans. Beside finalizing formalities (Terms of Reference, work plan for 2006/07 and budget for 2006) and finding clear definitions for tourism/sustainable tourism/ecotourism, the group elaborated a list of threats and obstacles for sustainable development in terms of sustainable tourism in the Carpathians. The list will provide a basis for a fact sheet series. Furthermore, the CERI Tourism WG agreed to develop a Carpathian-wide ecotourism project, which will be its major task for the 2008 and will help to strengthen the ‘Corporate Identity’ within the Carpathians.