POLAND National Focal Point Full Name of the Institution: Ministry of Environment
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UNEP/CBD/COP/5/13/Add.2 Page 1 Please provide the following details on the origin of this report Contracting Party POLAND National Focal Point Full name of the institution: Ministry of Environment Name and title of contact Dr Bożena Haczek officer: Mailing address: Wawelska St. 52/54, 00-922 Warsaw Telephone: +48 57 92 249 Fax: +485792555 E-mail: [email protected] Contact officer for national report (if different) Full name of the institution: Ministry of Environment Name and title of contact Dr Bożena Haczek officer: Mailing address: Wawelska St. 52/54, 00-922 Warsaw Telephone: +48 57 92 282 Fax: +485792555 E-mail: [email protected] Submission Signature of officer responsible for submitting national report: Date of submission: 15.05.2001 UNEP/CBD/COP/5/13/Add.2 Page 2 Foreword The signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity are obliged to compile periodic reports on the implementation of its provisions. The first such Report was prepared by Poland and presented to the Convention's Executive Secretary in 1997. The present Report has been prepared on the basis of the detailed guidelines developed for the Fifth Conference of the Parties (COP). Its layout corresponds to successive articles of the CBD, as well as the Decisions of the Conferences of the Parties associated with them, and has therefore come to comprise the following subject-related blocks: • matters of a formal nature; • introductory matters concerning the policy priorities of the country (and linking up with the programmes of work devised successively by the Conferences of the Parties); • matters contained in successive articles of the Convention (Arts. 5-26 inclusive), along with the relevant decisions taken at COPs II-V inclusive. In the case of each of the blocks, answers are given to the questions set in relation to both general issues and the more detailed ones, along with an appropriate commentary in which an effort is made to touch upon all the matters raised in the given block. The imposition by the Convention Secretariat of such an arrangement of questions combined with the suggested maximum for the size of the supplementary commentary1 to ensure that a whole series of issues could be little more than signalled, while others are discussed in a much more detailed fashion. Proceeding on the assumption that the commentary sections should be as autonomous as possible, it has not been possible or even desirable to avoid a certain repetition where this increases the comprehensibility of descriptions. The authors of the Polish Report have considered that the whole range of issues required broader discussion, and have therefore been involved in the preparation of numerous subject- related appendices. Work on the Report made reference to more than 100 information sources of various kinds - ranging from the bodies and institutions of the public administration, via scientific institutions, to the environmental NGOs. The team of authors would therefore like to extend their sincerest thanks to all those who have enriched the substantive content of the Report with their knowledge. 1 In a number of cases the comments extend beyond the suggested limit of 1-2 pages of text. UNEP/CBD/COP/5/13/Add.2 Page 3 Please provide summary information on the process by which this report has been prepared, including information on the types of stakeholders who have been actively involved in its preparation and on material which was used as a basis for the report The preparation of the Second National Report on implementation of the provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity was entrusted by the Ministry of the Environment to the National Foundation for Environmental Protection (NFOŚ), which was also author of the First Report from 1997. The auctorial team to which the task was appointed acted under the leadership of Andrzej Weigle, M.Sc. and comprised employees of the Foundation, as well as persons in steady cooperation with it, representing both bodies within the central administration and scientific research institutions. The compilation of the subject-related report devoted to genetic resources was assigned to a group at the Institute of Plant Breeding and Acclimatisation under the leadership of Dr Wiesław Podyma. The drawing up of the report concerning forests was in turn left in the expert hands of a team from the Forest Research Institute headed by Prof. Kazimierz Rykowski. In commencing with the work, the assumption adopted was that the document produced should take advantage of the widest possible information base and also represent the outcome of a nationwide discussion devoted to the current policy of the country and the achievements made as regards the protection and sustainable use of biological diversity. The result, as work on the drawing-up of the Report progressed, was the taking of the following steps with a view to obtaining answers to questions contained in the guidelines to the Report,aswellaspresenting Polish achievements in this regard: • Pattern information sheets were prepared with a view to the tasks undertaken in the country being described. A directly-addressed circular informing of the commencement of work was prepared, with an enjoinder to anyone interested to become involved in the editing process. This was then sent out to the Chief Nature Conservator in each of Poland's 16 voivodships (units of administration with representation of both provincial and regional authorities), to the Boards of the National and Landscape Parks, to the Regional Directorates of the State Forests and to environmental NGOs. • An Internet site was launched as an element in the Clearing-House Mechanism (CHM) system of information exchange, along with cues directing the browser to other web pages linked to nature conservation. Appropriate information was sent out by e-mail to the recipients of the discussion letters. • A series of individual consultations were held with experts representing the central and local government administrations, different fields of the sciences, NGOs and the private sector. • A study of the subject literature and unpublished materials was made, as well as searches of databases, including those published on the Internet. • Ongoing verification of the Report being compiled at the Ministry of the Environment was carried out. The draft Report drawn up on the basis of the aforementioned sources was submitted to the UNEP/CBD/COP/5/13/Add.2 Page 4 Department of Forestry and Nature and Landscape Conservation of the Ministry of the Environment. Once various accommodations had been reached internally (with other departments at the Ministry), a final version of the document was approved by the Chief Conservator of Nature. UNEP/CBD/COP/5/13/Add.2 Page 5 The COP has established programmes of work that respond to a number of Articles. Please identify the relative priority accorded to each theme and the adequacy of resources. This will allow subsequent information on implementation of each Article to be put into context. There are other questions on implementation of the programmes of work at the end of these guidelines. Inland water ecosystems 1. What is the relative priority for implementation of this work programme in your country? a) High r b) Medium c) Low d) Not relevant 2. To what extent are the resources available adequate for meeting the obligations and recommendations made? a) Good b) Adequate r c) Limiting d) Severely limiting Marine and coastal biological diversity 3. What is the relative priority for implementation of this work programme in your country? a) High r b) Medium c) Low d) Not relevant 4. To what extent are the resources available adequate for meeting the obligations and recommendations made? a) Good b) Adequate r c) Limiting d) Severely limiting Agricultural biological diversity 5. What is the relative priority for implementation of this work programme in your country? a) High r b) Medium c) Low d) Not relevant 6. To what extent are the resources available adequate for meeting the obligations and recommendations made? a) Good b) Adequate r c) Limiting UNEP/CBD/COP/5/13/Add.2 Page 6 d) Severely limiting Forest biological diversity 7. What is the relative priority for implementation of this work programme in your country? a) High r b) Medium c) Low d) Not relevant 8. To what extent are the resources available adequate for meeting the obligations and recommendations made? a) Good r b) Adequate c) Limiting d) Severely limiting Biological diversity of dry and sub-humid lands 9. What is the relative priority for implementation of this work programme in your country? a) High b) Medium c) Low d) Not relevant r 10. To what extent are the resources available adequate for meeting the obligations and recommendations made? a) Good b) Adequate c) Limiting d) Severely limiting Further comments on work programmes and priorities The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are working step by step on programmes referring to: the ecosystems of inland waters, seas and coastal zones; areas of agricultural use and forest areas; and arid or semi-arid areas. In Polish conditions, all the aforementioned types of ecosystem except the arid or semi-arid areas are counted among major forms of land cover2 All have been afforded high priority where protection is concerned. These priorities have been detailed in a series of strategic-type 2 The total area of the country in line with the current administrative division is 312,685 km². In Polish conditions, inland waters are understood more broadly as wetland areas, thereby embracing (with flowing and still waters, marshes and swamps) some 3% of the country. Sea areas - i.e. territorial waters in the Baltic up to 12 nautical miles from the coast and including internal waters (fragments of the Szczecin Lagoon, Bay of Gdańsk, Vistula Lagoon and ports) cover c.