Dear All,

I like to come back to the point made by Carsten Nesshoever and Katalin Torok before. Both mentioned in their mails the National Biodiversity Platforms (NBPs) promoted within EPBRS and Bioplatform as a rather important development in the area of creating science -policy interfaces that make a difference.

I wonder why we haven't heard anything so far from people directly involved in the establishment or running of an NBP. In the last years all in all National Biodiversity Platforms could be established in 23 countries and nearly all of them have quoted in their objectives that they want to be some kind of science-policy interface in Biodiversity research at national level. I would like to hear what are their perspectives and strategies for a successful science-policy communication. What are their experiences with difficulties and - quite concrete - I like to hear what activities have been undertaken to (1) attract policy makers and other stakeholders to participate in the NBPs; (2) what are their communication strategies (passive and active) and last but not lest (3) how they intend to evaluate the outcome of the NBPs in terms of policy influence and overall achievements. I know that some of the NBPs are rather new things or are just in the phase of development, but even so, we have to give all these answers at the latest for the final project report of Bioplatform in the near future. That means we can start and discuss these things already here in this session with a wider audience.

Last but not least I'd like to bring your attention to a level of science-policy interaction that has not been tackled till now. We speak about European and national councils, platforms or advisory committees for policy advice, but we shouldn't forget that the fate of biodiversity depends to a big extent on decisions made on the local or maximum regional level. Decisions made by local politicians, like mayors of municipalities, to allow new building areas or industrial parks in their communities or to create (and pay!) for an environmental education programme in the summer school break for the pupils of the local schools. Normally they don't look for advice from outside the community and don't care very much about European and even national councils. Has science to play a role here too or is everything depending on the persuasiveness of the local NGOs?

Maybe you feel this question brings us too close to application problems of Biodiversity protection and far away from our scientific focus, but it is the sum of all these small political decisions that are responsible for the decline and Biodiversity and not only the European policy alone. Therefore we should care for this level too and not only be floating on "European spheres".

Looking forward to your comments

Rainer

BioPlatform - Thematic Network for Biodiversity Research (www.Bioplatform.info)
CIMAR- Centre for Marine and Environmental research
Rua dos Bragas 289; 4050-123 Porto/Portugal