Notification 2010-108

Dear Madam/Sir, The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in decision VIII/14, stated that Parties shall submit the fourth national report by 30 March 2009. In the same decision, the COP requested the CBD Executive Secretary to facilitate the support to Parties for the preparation of national reports including through organizing regional workshops in this regard. However, our record shows that your country is yet to submit the fourth national report and it is imperative to have reports from all the Parties for reviewing progress towards the 2010 target, which is an issue that will be undertaken at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to be held in Nagoya, Japan, from 18-29 October 2010. In response to the request above, I am therefore pleased to announce that, with the kind support of the Governments of Japan and Hungary, a workshop will be held from 29 June to 1 July 2010 in Budapest, Hungary, for some European countries listed below. I believe that this workshop will facilitate the early submission of the fourth national report of these countries. Accordingly, I would like to invite you to nominate an officer or expert responsible for preparing your country’s fourth national report, no later than 8 June 2010. I would like to emphasize that the nominee should be the officer or expert deeply involved in the preparation of the fourth national report and in a position to revise and/or finalize the report within four weeks after the workshop. To make this workshop as productive and useful as possible, all participating countries are required to provide the Secretariat with a draft of their fourth national report by 20 June, and to also bring this draft to the workshop for review. The working language of the workshop will be English. The documents of the workshop will be made available in due course. Only one participant from eligible countries will be financially supported to attend this workshop. This covers round-trip economy-class air tickets, hotel accommodation and part of daily subsistence allowances to cover meals and incidentals. I look forward to receiving your nomination and, more importantly, your country’s fourth national report soon, and thank you very much for your support and cooperation. Please accept, Madam/Sir, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Executive Secretary

To: CBD National Focal Points of the following countries: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Iceland, Macedonia FYR, Malta, Montenegro, Portugal, San Marino, and Serbia.