Environment Ministers get hands on with Biodiversity

07 September 2012

British-Irish Council Ministers met at Vogrie Country Park in Midlothian, Scotland for the twelfth ministerial meeting on the Environment with a focus on Biodiversity. Before the meeting, Ministers joined children from Tynewater Primary School to take part in a BioBlitz. – an exercise to collect data on biodiversity within the Park.

The meeting discussed biodiversity strategies in the different BIC Member Administrations and welcomed the enhancements planned to the UK’s National Biodiversity Network Gateway (NBN) to enable data collection on biodiversity from the Channel Islands. Ministers collectively recognised the threat posed to these islands by invasive species. They agreed upon the need to improve monitoring, warning systems and risk assessment across BIC Administrations and the potential for an expert meeting in the run-up to the anticipated EU Directive.

The full communiqué can be found here.

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