important plant areas in central and eastern europe - Plantlife

Existing legislation & programmes
IPAs and the Aarhus Convention on Public Participation
Context
The Aarhus Convention is an environmental treaty with three pillars, which grants
citizens access to environmental information, the right of public participation in
environmental decision making, and the right of access to justice if public (local,
regional, and national government) environmental decisions are made without reference
to the rights outlined above.
References
The Aarhus Convention
(www.unece.org/env/pp/)
The European Commission and the
Aarhus Convention (www.europa.eu.int/
comm/environment/aarhus
The Convention was negotiated by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
and signed in 1998 at the Fourth Ministerial Meeting in the ‘Environment for Europe’
process. It brings together environmental rights and human rights and was triggered by
Principle 10 of the Rio Convention (the CBD). 40 countries in Europe are signatories of
the Aarhus Convention.The EU is also a signatory and has two directives relating to the
access to information and public participation.These EU directives should be enforced in
the national legislation of member states by 2005.
IPAs and the Aarhus Convention
The aims of the IPA project and information about priority plant sites must be
disseminated to a wide public audience in order to facilitate public participation in
environmental decision-making.
Current progress
In the seven partner countries, Russia and the south east Europe region there have been
many articles, leaflets and publicity material, including a radio show in the Czech
Republic.At the start of 2005 there will be national publications about IPAs in each of
the seven partner countries and also a regional overview in English, which will be
publicly available in print or over the web. Plantlife International is also developing the
public access section of their website, in consultation with partners, which could allow
public access to fact-sheets about IPAs in participating countries.
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