EIONET/EEA/ ESENIAS Workshop: Managing Invasive Alien Species in East and South European countries: the way ahead

27-28 September 2012

Co-organizers:
European Environment Agency (EEA)
East and South European Network for Invasive Alien Species (ESENIAS)
University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Sciences, Serbia
Institute for Plant Protection and Environment, Belgrade, Serbia
Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Under the Patronage of:
Provincial Ministry of Science and Technological Development, Novi Sad, Serbia

Funding:
European Environment Agency (EEA)

Organizing Committee:

Ms Melanie Josefsson, EEA
Ms Milica Rat, Faculty of Sciences University of Novi Sad
Dr Dragana Marisavljevic, Institute for Plant Protection and Environment, Belgrade
Prof. Dr Ahmet Uludag, Iğdır University, Turkey
Ms Teodora Trichkova, Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
Prof. Dr Rumen Tomov, University of Forestry, Bulgaria

Workshop Objectives

• Develop a work plan with actions for the development of the ESENIAS network, including further improvement of cooperation and networking on IAS in the region;
• Follow up on the initiative to develop a review and/or checklist of IAS in the region in order to develop a regional inventory;
• Share information on IAS related initiatives carried out at the regional level, such as national or local monitoring schemes, risk assessments, control and eradication projects, management plans and national strategies; citizens activities and responsibilities, society and monitoring schemes;
• Plan future work and organisation of this work, including establishing a secretariat for ESENIAS and an information system on IAS in the region to enable sharing of data and other information on IAS;
• Explore options for cooperation with other regional and international organisations such as the EEA, NOBANIS and the IUCN;
• Develop the structure and organization of the dataflow to and within the ESENIAS website.

AGENDA

Thursday, 27 September

Opening Session with welcome and introduction of participants
9.30 - 9:45 Welcome

Session 1. Update on ESENIAS activities

9:45 – 10:15 Overview of developments within ESENIAS. Where do we stand today? (Teodora Trichkova) >>>
10:15 – 10:30 Networking and Presentations of ESENIAS at conferences, workshops (Ahmet Uludag) >>>

10:30-11:00 Coffee

11:00 – 12:00 Reports from countries and organizations in ESENIAS on developments and activities regarding IAS (max 5-6 minutes per country).

• Bulgaria- IAS activities in Bulgaria (Radoslav Stanchev, ExEA-MoEW) >>>
• Croatia- What is new regarding IAS in Croatia? (Aljoša Duplić, SINP, Vesna Vrdoljak, MENP) >>>
• Greece- IAS activities – publishing, databases, networking (Argyro Zenetos, HCMR) >>>
• Kosovo under UNSC Resolution 1244/99 (Qenan Maxhuni, Kosovo EPA)
• FYR Macedonia (Bojan Simovski, Vladimir Dzabirski, University in Skopje)
• Montenegro- Existing legislation and IAS activities in Montenegro (Sead Hadžiablahović, Ivana Bulatović, EPA MNE) >>>
• Serbia (Verica Stojanović, Institute for nature protection of Serbia, Belgrade)
• Turkey (Ahmet Uludag, Iğdır University) >>>

12:00 – 13:00 LUNCH

13:00-14:00 Press Conference

Session 2. IAS Networks in Europe and ESENIAS (developing cooperation with other Pan-European and global groups).

14.00 - 14.15 EU Policy and strategy developments within the EU – the EU biodiversity Strategy for 2020 and EU regulation on IAS. Experiences with the work and speculations on what the coming regulation may bring (Melanie Josefsson)
14:15 – 14:35 IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group's work with IAS. (Riccardo Scalera)
14:35 – 15:10 Progress toward an European network on IAS
o COST initiative (further development of DAISIE) (Riccardo Scalera)
o The EU Joint Research Center's EASIN (Melanie Josefsson) >>>
o The Joint Work Programme to Strengthen Information Services on Invasive Alien Species (Melanie Josefsson) >>>
o NOBANIS - European network on invasive alien species (Mr Tomas Gorner) >>>
o Bio-control of IAS and CABI (Dr Ivo Tosevski)
o Prioritisation of Invasive Alien Plants (Mr Giuseppe Brundu) >>>

15:10 – 15:30 Coffee

15:30 – 16:00 Session 2 (continued)

16:00 – 18:00 Session 3. Developing an ESENIAS Work Plan for 2012 and beyond. (Teodora Trichkova, Milica Rat and steering committee)

- Focus of ESENIAS
- ESENIAS structure – leadership, structure and governance of group. Secretariat?
- ESENIAS Website
- Who is the targeted audience or main users of the ESENIAS website?
- What data to collect?
- Review and listing of IAS in the region. Templates.
- ESENIAS work plan and time schedule
- Follow up of ESENIAS activities – how will this occur?
- Information sharing – what is desirable to be shared? How can this be done practically?
- Discuss approach to include neighbouring countries, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, southern European countries, Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal followed by northern African countries, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis.
- Networking and cooperation with other IAS databases and gateways.

19:00 DINNER followed by informal discussions

Friday, September 28

8:30 – 10:00 Session 3 continued

10.00 – 10:20 Coffee

10:20 – 12:00 Session 4. Technical issues for developing ESENIAS including ideas for funding ESENIAS. (Teodora Trichkova, Milica Rat and steering committee)

12:00-13:00 LUNCH

13:00 – 14:00 Session 5. ESENIAS publication. Ideas for structure and content. Time plan. (Milica Rat, Rumen Tomov, Teodora Trichkova)

14:00 – 14:30 Session 6. Other business

- Date and Venue for next meeting
- Any Other Business

15:00 – 17:00 – Field trip