i) ANNOUNCEMENT: MIO-ECSDE MEETINGS
MIO-ECSDE and the University of Athens are the Secretariat of the International Conference: "Environment and Society: Education and Public Awereness for Sustainability" organised by UNESCO and the Government of Greece, in Thessaloniki, Greece, 8-12 December 1997. With this opportunity MIO-ECSDE plans to organise a three day preparatory "twin" Mediterranean NGO Workshop in Thessaloniki, on 5-7 December. The content of the Workshop will be: Part I "Participation, Public Awareness, Environmental Education" and Part II "Religion, Values and the Environment".
MIO-ECSDE also plans to hold the Annual General Meeting of its Member Organisations, probably, in the evening of 7 December 1997, also in Thessaloniki.More information will be provided in the forthcoming Bulletins and by invitations. MIO-ECSDE Member Organisations will be expected to confirm their interest in any of these meetings.

A meeting of the National Focal Points of the Mediterranean Action Plan took place in Athens, 7-9 July. The meeting was organised in order to review the progress to the MAP and to propose recommendations relevant to the programme budget of MAP for the 1998-1999 biennium, for the subsequent consideration and approval by the Tenth Ordinary Meeting of the Contracting Parties (to be held in Tunis, 18-21 November 1997). Lively discussions took place after the presentations of the activities undertaken by the various Regional Activity Centres (RACs) for the period 1996-1997. Some of the points that were raised were: the need for more adequate dissemination of information by some RACs to the National Focal Points, the importance of finding ways to finance the follow-up of MAP studies such as the CAMP studies and in general the need to reinforce the action oriented dimension of MAP in parallel to its assessment oriented dimension. The relation between the RACs and the Co-ordinating Unit, as well as their cooperation with NGOs was another subject discussed. Concerning the budget programmed for 1998-1999 MAP’s Secretariat proposal was to keep it, in 1998, at the same level as in 1997 and in 1999 to have a 2% increase in extraordinary contributions over those of 1998. After the intervention of the representative of Spain the meeting came to support in principle the proposal to be a 2% increase of ordinary contributions in 1998 and an additional 2 % in 1999 over the 1998 ordinary contributions, eliminating however the extraordinary contributions.
MIO-ECSDE’s intervention at the meeting criticised the stagnation in the budget in view of the remaining pressing needs and focused on the importance of the co-operation of RACs with NGOs in order to integrate their work done in relevant fields and thus erase the phenomenon of antagonising over external funding. Its intervention also helped to increase the MAP’s budget allocated to NGOs by an additional 10.000 US$ for 1999.

The Italian Government and the Region of Basilicata organised an International Conference in Matera, 28 and 29 July 1997, attended by the representatives of France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Malta was also represented together with the Secretariat of CCD, IFAD, the EEA, the Commission of the EU (DGXII), the RAC on remote sensing of UNEP/MAP, MIO-ECSDE and many Italian Universities, Research Centres and NGOs.

The main aim and result of the meeting was the formulation of a South European / Mediterranean opinion on the Convention of Desertification in view of the meeting of the Contracting Parties in Rome later this year.

It is reminded that the aforementioned EU countries (together with Turkey, which was invited but didn’t manage to send a representative) are the so-called Annex IV countries of the Convention to Combat Desertification. So they are the only “developed” ones included in the Convention which have experienced desertification themselves. Therefore, at the same time, they have the expertise and means to support others in the neighbourhood on this issue and they can advocate the Convention to the rest of the EU and its member states, which at the moment are not very active in this field.

MIO-ECSDE, through its Chairman M. Scoullos, has played an active role in the formulation of this position. It is reminded that MIO-ECSDE has asked the European Commission (DGXI) to include the Desertification issue among the priorities for the Euro-Med cooperation.

CLAPE-LR and the EEB will organise, on 16-18 October 1997, in Montpellier, France, in collaboration with EcoPeace, ATPNE and TEMA and the support of other international and national bodies, a preparatory meeting for the Helsinki Ministerial Conference on the euro-mediterranean partnership.

The meeting aims to offer the participants an opportunity to exchange views and share case studies on:

1. The issues which will have been selected in the framework of the Short and Medium term Environmental Priority Action Programme (SMAP), which is being prepared and which will be submitted to the Ministers in Helsinki.

2. The environmental impact of development actions involved in the setting up of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, in particular the Mediterranean Free Trade Zone.

3. The Montpellier meeting will also be an opportunity to exchange experiences and to prepare an opinion and a common NGO position on SMAP to be presented in Helsinki.

The preparatory documents and the final report of the meeting as well as the results of the Helsinki Conference are planed to be included in two special issues of the “Sustainable Mediterranean”. NGOs are invited to send written contributions on the above mentioned issues. (Information: CLAPE-LR, tel: +334 67797750, fax: 67724500. EEB, tel: +322 2891094, fax: 2891099, e-mail: eeb.bee@skynet.be)

Some of the main activities of TURMEPA are the following:

1. Educational Activities: a) 8 hour Seminars, training teachers who are to educate the young volunteers for the environment. b) Book publication: “The Seas Must Live” which was provided to the Ministry of National Education for use in primary schools around the country. c) Efforts to create a Junior Club in 1997 for training purposes.

2. Sea Cleaning activities: Plans the operation of a boat “Deniztemiz II” as sea broom, that will be able to collect solid as well as petroleum based wastes from waters, in addition to the “Demiztemiz I” which collects solid wastes from yachts and the coastline in the summer months.

3. Studies : a)Yassiada Project: feasibility studies on the availability and benefits of using Yassiada, for the supply of fuel and goods to the by-passing ships, for the traffic of Istanbul Port. b) Study on waste water management.

4. Data Processing Centre: Efforts to create a data bank (on the Internet) for accessibility to a wide array of information under the marine title.

5. Cooperations: TURMEPA is proceeding its cooperation with the Turkish Ministry of Tourism, the Naval Forces and Coast Guard Command. Its co-operation with the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association is also on its way.

EcoPeace has informed the MIO-ECSDE Secretariat on the following activities and publications:

1. COME ACT: will be the 3rd Clean - Up campaign, which will take place throughout the Gulf of Aqaba, in September 1997. Participants from Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine will join up efforts to promote public awareness and empower others of taking similar actions.

2. Recent Publications: a) An updated Inventory of New Development Projects compiled from the reports presented by the Palestinian National Authority, the Hashmite Kingdom of Jordan, the State of Israel and the Republic of Egypt to the Casablanca, Amman and Cairo Middle East-North Africa Economic Summits. b) Sustainable Development - New Concepts in Environmental Management and Planning (proceedings of the 1996 conference on Sustainable Societies). c) Dead Sea Challenges (compilation of draft position papers and the deliberations of the public in the aftermath of public meetings in several cities). (Information: EcoPeace, tel: +972 2 6260841/3, fax: 6260840, e-mail: ecopeace@netvision.net.il)