Council of Europe

This First Emerald Network Biogeographical Seminar for Switzerland, co-organised by the Federal Office for Environment (Switzerland), the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity of the European Environment Agency and the Council of Europe, took place in Basel, Switzerland on 5 July 2012. It followed on from the preparatory technical Emerald seminar held in Basel on 15 September 2011.

The purpose of the meeting was to assess at a biogeographical level the extend to which the 37 candidate Emerald sites proposed by the country are sufficient to ensure the long term survival of habitats and species listed respectively in Resolutions 4 (1996) and 6 (1998) of the Bern Convention and to address further needs for site proposals to complete the Emerald network in the country.

This phase is a necessary step before sites can be officially approved as ASCIs by the Standing Committee to the Bern Convention and designated at national level. The seminar was be chaired by Mr Jan Plesnik, Chair of the Standing Committee to the Bern Convention, while the discussions on each targeted species and habitats were facilitated by experts from the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC/BD).

All documents are available only in English.