Spain welcomes the VII Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests

USPA NEWS - Spain welcomes on Tuesday and Wednesday the Seventh Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (FOREST EUROPE). The aim is to develop common strategies for its 46 member countries and the European Union, in order to protect and manage their forests sustainably.

This VII Conference happens at held in Strasbourg (1990), Helsinki (1993), Lisbon (1998), Vienna (2003), Warsaw (2007) and Oslo (2011). Since 2010, Spain holds the chairmanship along with the Slovak Republic and is home to the Technical Secretary, after two days Conference will move to Bratislava (Slovakia). The Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Isabel Garcia Tejerina, opened the VII Conference and will close the meeting on the afternoon of day 21.

Ordinary Ministerial Conference on Tuesday addresses the challenges and opportunities currently facing forests and forestry in the pan-European region. There, statements, decisions and resolutions policies that ministers responsible for forests agreed on pressing current issues on forests and forestry, as well as decisions aimed at strengthening the process itself are presented. The Extraordinary Ministerial Conference of the day 21 was specifically intended by the so-called 'Ministerial Mandate Oslo Negotiating a Legally Binding Agreement on Forests in Europe', adopted at the last Ministerial Conference of FOREST EUROPE, held in Oslo in June 2011.

The process of Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (FOREST EUROPE) is the pan-European political process for sustainable forest management of forests in Europe, where common strategies are developed for the 46 EU member countries and management sustainable forests. Also, 14 countries outside Europe and 45 international organizations participate in the process as observers. This process came at the initiative of France and Finland in 1990, in response to the growing problems of forest weakening by transnational air pollution, and has established itself as a continental reference process at ministerial level that addresses the key challenges of forests and industry associated.

Ministerial Conferences between a process of implementation of decisions, resolutions and ministerial declarations agreed is given, and the topics to be discussed at the next Conference, with continued work between them through various meetings are made. The main organ executor of decisions made by ministers, and developing possible decisions or resolutions for the next ministerial conference is the ELM (Meeting of Senior Experts), consisting of experts designated by the ministers. The progress of the process is directed by the General Coordinating Committee (GCC), comprising five countries, currently Norway, Spain, Slovakia, Germany and Turkey.