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We started thinking on organizing a conference on the links
between business and biodiversity in the second half of 2007.
This was the time when we got involved in the preparations
of the High Level Conference on Business and Biodiversity
(hosted by Portugal on 11-12. November 2007).
Our own conference, which took place in Budapest convened
fifty participants from the government, civil and financial
sectors as well as from Small- and Medium sized enterprises.
The participants heard presentations about how to link business
and biodiversity from Shulamit Alony, Countdown 2010
and about the European Business and Biodiversity Initiative
from András Demeter, European Commission. Eszter
Kovács from the Ministry for Environment and Water
was talking about national experiences in developing favorable
bank loans. Finally, a currently running project called BTAU
(Biodiversity Technical Assistance Unit) financed by the European
Union was presented by Dénes Nagy from BirdLife
Hungary.
We made it a special point to share national best practices
to inspire the participants in their everyday lives. As entrepreneurs
they could get involved more deeply in nature protection and,
at the same time, could boost profits.
In the second part of the day the active stakeholders were
split into three smaller groups. In the groups everyone had
a chance to express their opinions and suggestions about Business
and Biodiversity financing, successful projects, and policies.
Several constructive suggestions came up during
the meeting, which are worth thinking of. Among these we
would emphasize the following three:
1. Both on EU and on national levels it would be worth finding
solution to pick up managing organizations, which
could help in the further distribution of European funds.
Thus SMEs also could partake in grants for their
nature friendly developments. This would be one of the necessary
contributions to a better distribution of European funds,
thus allowing more effective participation of SMEs in grant
programmes.
2. Incentives could help the development of credit lines
for biodiversity 'friendly' SMEs. State guarantee and
interest subsidies could be crucial incentives for many
companies. Getting to know other international examples
from this field could be also interesting and constructive.
3. Furthermore, tools are needed to better assess the
biodiversity impacts of biodiversity businesses. As
such, the long term follow-up of the results and impacts
of (nature conservation) actions and developments could
be an important (partly approachable) task. This strategy
would focus on the real outcomes instead of administrative
liabilities in case of bank loans or state supports. Initiating
negotiations or even getting to know international examples
could be worthwhile.
CEEweb will be advocating for such proposals in Brussels
and also will be taking part in distributing and communicating
international experiences.
Overall, we were happy to see that stakeholders were enthusiastic
and got actively involved in the issue. If we want this process
to be successful, it is ever so important to give people a
chance to participate actively in common events and to form
and maintain new relationships.
Further information: Veronika
Kiss, programme coordinator
The conference was organised with the support of the National
Civic Fund
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