The European ECO-Forum Strategy Meeting held in Kiev Ukraine, 14-16 September 2000 in the hotel "Tourist". The Organising Committee and Conference Secretariat was hosted by the Ukrainian NGO "MAMA-86". The meeting was supported by the grant of the Danish Ministry for Environment and Energy, Danish Environmental Protection Agency.

Representatives of 104 environmental citizens' organisations (ECOs) from 33 countries of pan-European region and a number of guests came together to discuss different issues of the "Environment for Europe" (EfE) process, ECOs possible contribution to the 5^th EfE Ministerial Conference (Kiev, Ukraine, 2003) agenda and preparations, ECO-Forum strategic plans, organisational matters and the way forward.

The ECO-Forum Co-ordination Board with full respect of the following criteria has selected funded participants:

• regional (Central and Eastern Europe - Newly Independent States - Western Europe) balance;
• at least 2 people per country (if applied);
• one person from one organisation;
• special opportunity for broader representation was given to Ukrainian NGOs (see list of participants in Annex 8).

Gaudenz Silberschmidt (ISDE) and Victoria Elias (ECO-Accord) chaired the plenary meeting. Anna Golubovska-Onsimova welcomed the participants to Kiev on behalf of the Conference Organising Committee. Mr. Samoilenko, Ukrainian State Rada (Parliament) addressed the participants.

In the beginning of the meeting Gaudenz Silberschmidt (ISDE) gave an overview of the ECO-Forum activities in the WHO Environment and Health process and participation in the London Ministerial Conference (1999). Then the discussion was focused on the history of the EfE process (see also presentation by Victoria Elias (ECO-Accord) in Annex 1) and possible themes for the Kiev Ministerial agenda.

The following important themes were presented.

Aarhus Convention implementation;

Energy;

EAP;

PEBLDS.

• Transport, Environment and Health - towards a Framework Convention;
• Nuclear;
• Charter on Education and Environment;
• GMOs;
• Strategic Environmental Assessment;
• Freshwater;
• Environmental Liability;
• Waste management / PRTR;
• Sustainable development issues on the agenda of "Environment for Europe".

• Conjunction with the Rio+10 process;
• Interlinkage with E&H Process;
• Co-ordination with / between different conventions.

John Hontelez (EEB) presented the idea and proposed the structure for ECOs Statement on Kiev 2003.

Special concerns have been expressed on following matters:

• Necessity to discuss ECOs participation in Rio+10 process.
• Since not just NGOs and Governments but other major groups as well will participate in Rio+10, and multistakeholder dialogues are successful, do you want to go for multistakeholder dialogues?
• Decision to organise the Kiev Conference before or after Rio+10 may have a big impact on both preparation and outcome.
• We may not have as much involvement in WGSO as before. We need to act. We are in WGSO, not in Execom yet.
• Credit policy and environment should be one of the issues for Kiev agenda.
• Basin approach is essential for all environmental policy making.
• What is “strategy”, what makes our papers “strategic”? How much time we have.

It was mentioned that a bottleneck is not a lack of money, lack of knowledge, values, and policies. Lack of Values and Structures of Communications is essential. Is in particular important problem on local levels, no incentives for better performance, and no inspiration for local NGOs from this process.

• from CB nine proposals: (Transport, Environment and Health; Nuclear; Charter on Education and Environment; GMOs; Strategic Environmental Assessment; Freshwater; Environmental Liability; Waste management / PRTR; Sustainable development issues on the agenda of "Environment for Europe);
• credit policy and environment, analysis of credit policy and international assistance policy;
• climate change, implementation of Kyoto protocol - to put on the agenda;
• from nuclear to energy as such: Green Tax reform - to put on the agenda;
• Economic instruments to list. Ecological tax reform, demand side management, subsidies. Consumption and production patterns. In particular consumption patterns that are not covered by other issues;
• not to have additional legal instruments, but focus on implementation of existing ones (proposal from EAP IG workshops in the NIS, summer 2000);
• Environmental Statistics per country should be prepared;
• At exhibition for Ministers: action of NGOs;
• Small book about big mistakes of environmental policies in Europe;
• NGO Session with ministers is very important - lobby for it;
• Environment & Health issues should also be on Kiev agenda. Chemicals are missing. Nuclear: more than power plants - weapons, environmental impact of this industry should be overseen;
• Sustainable development problems should be on the Kiev agenda.

Svitlana Kravchenko (Ecopravo-Lviv) highlighted that we focus very much on legal instruments. She suggested establishing a working group inside of ECO-Forum on legal issues (Further developed to the Legal Resource Group established by environmental lawyers in the ECO Forum).

Dmitri Kavtaratze (EcopolisPress) suggested to underline role of NGO’s in society. Education must be motivating for action. Suggested to expand capacity from NGOs, organise training for ECO-Forum leaders. Timetables, targets, and indicators: we do not have time.

During the open discussion participants expressed their concerns and ideas on different suggested aspects. It was agreed to develop the NGO paper during the Strategy Meeting, adopt it at the third day plenary, disseminate widely and use for the NGO lobbying purposes.

The Declaration editorial group: John Hontelez (EEB), Victoria Elias (ECO-Accord), Iza Kruszewska (ANPED), Marie Kranendonk (WECF), Fritz Kroiss (OEKOBUERO), Diana Iskreva (Peace Corps).

The Press Conference took place during the lunch break.

Facilitator: Gunnar Boye Olesen, OVE/INFORSE, Denmark, Energy and Climate Issue Group Co-ordinator

The workshop was organised during 2 days of the ECO-Forum Strategy Meeting. Participants discussed different issues of energy efficiency, sustainable energy, nuclear, climate change. The discussion was focused on the implementation of Aarhus decisions, Aarhus follow-up, new issues, suggestions to the ECO-Forum Declaration and some organisational matters.

Pan-European demands:

• no new nuclear power;
• step-wise phase out of existing nuclear power plants;
• no import/export of nuclear waste;
• establish a nuclear phase-out account/fund to prepare phase out of CEE nuclear power plants including plans for alternatives and to mitigate social effects.

In addition participants expressed their support to the K2R4 campaign, campaign against export of mox fuel plant from Germany to Russia.

Demands:

• ban import/export of electricity from dangerous nuclear power plants and dirty fossil fuels plants (plants that pollutes more than Western European standards);
• label all electricity with origin of supply. All consumers should know the sources of power they use.

The phase out of environmental harmful subsidies in Europe should continue in all countries, where it still exists.

The energy efficiency legislation and structure that exists in all countries should have higher priority in national policy making. Existing subsidies should be reported to international statistics.

Demands:

• all countries should as far as possible reduce emissions with national emission reduction measures;
• joint implementation should follow strict criteria and should be limited to energy efficiency and renewable energy. Among others, nuclear and waste incineration should be excluded.

Beside this we recommend that many ECO send clear messages to their national governments, even if they are not involved in the finer details of climate negotiations. We also find that there is a strong need to involve more CEE NGOs (including NIS) to raise awareness on the issue among NGOs and among the population.

ECO-Forum Energy and Climate Issue group will participate in the UN-ECE Sustainable Energy Committee with the view of improving its environmental profile and in particular for a progressive statement for CSD9. Interested participants are: Vadim Dukanov (USSD, Ukraine), Gunnar Boye Olesen (INFORSE-Europe/OVE), CNE (Jason Anderson - committed CNE as organisation, not individual person).

ECO-Forum energy group will participate in the coming Intergovernmental Task Force on Reforming Energy Prices to Promote Sustainable Development, proposed by UN-ECE Environmental Division. Participants: Vadim Dukanov (USSD), CNE (Jason and colleagues).

• push for strong follow-up;
• promote and develop international co-operation. The IG will propose a number of elements based on ideas from Energy Efficiency Strategy and Ministerial Declaration from Aarhus. Gunnar will develop a list and circulate it to issue group for comments;
• At national levels, if a national ECO/network want to compare the decisions from Aarhus with the resulting national action and develop proposal for additional action, ECO-Forum will support it, as far as possible;
• co-operate on additional issues to support national ECO-activities for sustainable energy, e.g. a newsletter in Russian on sustainable energy and problems of traditional energy;
• support individual ECOs with projects relevant to the process / demonstrate good practices.

ECO-Forum representatives at follow-up in Energy Charter Working Group on Energy Efficiency: Serghyi Fedorinchik (Zlenyi Svit, Ukraine), CNE (Jason Anderson and colleagues).

All participants of the Strategy Meeting are invited to join issue group e-mail list.

Facilitator: Iza Kruszewska, ANPED, SPAC IG Co-ordinator

The workshop included 9 participants from 6 countries: Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan. They included an interesting mix of activists, scientists and an environmental lawyer. Most participants were completely new to the subject of GMOs and requested an introduction to the issue. The introduction outlined the inherent dangers of genetic engineering (GE), key applications and then focused on agricultural biotech: the main GE crops being grown and the two common traits being introduced: herbicide tolerance and insect resistance, and their potential threats to biodiversity and human health.

NGO reports outlining the situation with GMOs in several countries prepared by ANPED and partner NGOs were circulated among participants. They included reports about Ukraine, Croatia, Bulgaria and Poland, as well as a report from ANPED's NGO Strategy meeting on GE in Jachranka, Poland. Participants were asked if they wanted to join ANPED's GenEurope list-serve. Since NGO networks, besides ANPED, are supporting NGO work on GE in CEE-NIS, including A SEED and Friends of the Earth, it makes no sense for the ECO-Forum to establish an Issue Group on GMOs.

The key needs and demands identified during the discussion were:

• The scientific uncertainty surrounding the impacts of releasing GMOs into the environment calls for more extensive monitoring of existing releases; we demand a 5-year freeze on commercialisation of GMOs to allow more information on impacts to be collected.
• More right to know about releases of GMOs and about what GMOs are in our food (labelling). The Aarhus Convention needs to be amended:
• to widen right to know on GMOs to include labelling of GE foods;
• to ensure right of public to participate in decision-making on GMOs.

• Human rights with respect to GMOs, go beyond right to know, since genetic engineering tampers with life itself, and agricultural biotech could affect basic human rights to food (food security) and health protection.
• Educational programmes on biotechnology in schools.
• Training programmes on hazards of biotech, its ethical implications (patents on life), risks to environment and human health for decision-makers, lawmakers, politicians etc. Training of officials in CEE-NIS on regulatory matters pertaining to biotech should be undertaken by officials from environmentally progressive countries, like Norway, or UN ECE, on matters of public participation.
• Funding for GE research and capacity building on GMOs must not come from outside the country - and certainly not from the U.S. Nor, should it be provided by international financial institutions, like the World Bank. We need to work more closely with CEE BankWatch to investigate IFI support for ag-biotech.
• Both educational and training programmes must be funded from independent sources to enable objective information to be transferred.
• NGOs need to be disseminating information that GMOs are not the panacea that compromised scientists and the corporate hype are claiming them to be.
• Harmonisation of regional standards in the UNECE region - to those that are the highest in the region - could be achieved by developing a regional biosafety protocol. This may thwart attempts to use CEE-NIS as a dump for genetic technologies and its unwanted food products, deemed too hazardous or too unpopular in the West.
• The transfer of hazardous and unwanted genetechs to the east raises issues of environmental justice.
• There is an urgent need for liability on those releasing GMOs into the environment. Liability helps implement the precautionary principle by shifting the burden of proof to those wanting to undertaken hazardous activities to prove that they are safe.

The development of certain genetic technologies, such as DNA marker technology in Russia, should be supported, since this will enable implementation of biosafety and food safety laws. DNA marker technology enables mapping of the genetic information of seeds, crops and foods, and enables the detection of foreign genes.

Facilitators: Gaudenz Silberschmidt, ISDE, Co-ordinator of the Environment and Health IG, Sabine van Grafhorst, ANPED.

The Environment and Health Issue Group (E&H IG) reconvened for the first time since the London conference.

The meeting was co-chaired by Gaudenz Silberschmidt of ISDE and Sabine van Grafhorst of ANPED. It decided to define the E&H IG at the same time as an Issue Group of the ECO-Forum and as a subgroup of the European environment and health network eHEN. Since the multistakeholder group eHEN does not take policy positions the E&H IG shall be the place where NGOs take their common policy position, while the information exchange is mainly done through eHEN. This structure avoiding duplication shall be reflected in the listserver ANPED is establishing for eHEN, where an information list shall reach all stakeholders and a discussion list allow the elaboration of common policies between NGOs of the E&H IG. If this discussion list is handle under ehen.org or eco-forum.org remains to be defined. All participants of the Healthy Planet Forum should receive one message inviting them to subscribe to the appropriate listserver(s).

The group has then started a discussion on what health topics should be included in the Kiev agenda. Several participants would like to see health as a key topic of the Kiev meeting. There was a discussion on whether health should be included as such in the Kiev agenda or only within other topics in view of the WHO environment and health process leading from London 99 to Budapest 2004. The reached compromise is reflected in the Kiev declaration that health is an overarching and crosscutting theme and should be fully considered in the different instruments developed for Kiev such as the ones on transport, Strategic Environment (and Health) Assessment and Environment (and Health) Policy Integration.

Facilitator: Chris Church, ANPED, Local Issues Group Co-ordinator

The workshop started by stressing and agreeing the positive aspects of local action.

The key points were:

• It helps people experience their own natural environment;
• It encourages people to take responsibility and is educational;
• It can produce fast results;
• It can be fun!

Despite these good points there are often problems:

• Local action can be routine and boring, and thus difficult to sustain;
• People don't have time to volunteer;
• There is often a lack of resources needed to make actions effective;
• Some nations have big problems with indifferent, hostile or corrupt local and national government;
• Local and ecological interests can clash, often over economic interests.

This led on to a discussion as to how an ECO-Forum Local Issues Group could best help improve and promote local action. Some of the key points that came out were:

• Develop a network of independent experts who can offer advice that is appropriate to local level work.
• Identify and promote interesting case studies and good practice.
• Help organise skills training and capacity building.
• Organise East - West group linkages.
• Help with co-operation with officials.
• Focus the international media on key local issues.
• Help build a feeling of community, and promote the importance of local action.

It was also agreed that there was a need for a more strategic approach to local action. If it is to be most effective groups need to:

1. Make the issue relevant to local people, media and politicians.
2. Build local supports and develop coalitions.
3. Learn to lobby effectively.
4. Encourage effective participation by local people.

Groups need advice on

• Information - legal, technical, good examples,
• How to talk with authorities,
• How to delegate,
• Confidence,
• Encouragement!

The ECO-Forum should therefore seek to help groups with this work, and work to demystify key issues (such as the Aarhus Convention) so that they become relevant not just to lawyers and professionals but to local people.

The ECO-Forum should look to organise:

• Training workshops;
• Surveys of good and bad practice;
• Sharing of country to country experience;
• Improved networking.

OR identify where groups can get this help elsewhere.

It was recognised that there are already many capacity-building projects and they don't get to everyone, so ECO-Forum needs to reach out to other groups, programmes & networks.

It was pointed out that at present there are few resources for this work, but the Local issues Group is supported by ANPED, the Northern Alliance for Sustainability. ANPED has a local action electronic list, which groups can join simply by sending a blank email message to: anpedlocalaction-subscribe@egroups.com

This meeting was organised to have a reporting back from the workshops.

At the evening of the day 1 the side event on the History and the current situation in the Environmental NGO Movement has been organised.

John Hontelez (EEB) gave an overview of the Western Europe.

Jirka Dlouhi (Society for Sustainable Living, Czeck Republic) and Dariusz Szwed (Environmental Law Centre, Poland) - described cases of the Central and Eastern European Countries.

Victoria Elias (ECO-Accord, Russia) gave some general comments to the NIS movement development history.

Karine Danielian ("For Sustainable Human Development", Armenia) described the situation and Armenia and gave her analysis of the situation in the republic.

It was also a round of questions and answers of participants.