After three days of work, the first meeting of the Bern Convention Group of Experts on European Island Biological Diversity which was held in Tenerife on the Canary Islands has ended.
“The balance is interesting and an indicative of continued and useful work for the different Governments,” stated the official representing the Council of Europe, Eladio Fernández-Galiano, who added that “rare and sensitive species need urgent actions.”
Making statements at the end of the meeting, the Regional Director for the Environment said that “the identification of common weaknesses at the level of biodiversity management on the Islands was relevant, but the determination of common methods to revert the loss of biological diversity was the essential step of this meeting.”
These factors include the need to review the international criteria that lead to the classification of endangered or rare species, but are not appropriate for insular regions or for invertebrate organisms; improve the communication efficiency with the public and share the best practices with different the governments as well as with the different operational teams. “We know how to do it, we do a good work, but frequently new knowledge and new techniques are not disseminated in other territories,” stated Frederico Cardigos.
After the presentation of the work carried out in the Azores, with lectures by the Regional Director for the Environment and by the researcher of the University of the Azores, Paulo Borges, which included the reference to the reorganisation of protected areas, the creation of a voluntary reserve on Corvo, the environmental education and the recovery of the of the Azores Bullfinch population, but without forgetting the difficulty of combating invasive species; the official of IUCN, Kate Brown, stated that “the work carried out in the Azores is impressive and an example to be followed.” Kate Brown also said that “even the cases of failure should be shared so that the repetition of mistakes may be avoided.”
Among the shared information which may be used in the Azores, Regional Director for the Environment mentioned the new funding opportunities for activities and the definition of methodologies for a rapid warning in the case of a potential invasion. “It is curious that there are software programmes being developed by scientific teams which allow any person to identify organisms even to their subspecies level. Therefore, who observes an exotic species may identify it through the computer and immediately mention it for potential eradication,” stated Frederico Cardigos. Likewise, computer models that predict the expansion of invasive species based on climate change are being developed.