The University of Debrecen, Centre for Environmental Management and Policy organised a further three local stakeholder meetings. Representatives from regional authorities and non-governmental organisations took part. Stakeholders were informed about the current phase of the BID-REX project and discussed how biodiversity information is available locally.
The first meeting was held at the Hortobágy National Park Directorate headquarters, where the Vice-Director and staff participated. The purpose was to give an overview of the Hortobágy National Park Directorate’s data and information, and their availability. The Hortobágy National Park is one of ten national parks in Hungary and, historically, it is the main owner of biodiversity data. An important development is currently in progress: finalising the digitiatlisaton of data and the setting up of georeference data. This is an important step towards the development of an Open Data system.
A second meeting was held at the CEEWeb for Biodiversity headquarters in Budapest, where the Natura 2000 and Water officer and staff were present. CEE web is an international non-governmental network organisation working in Central and Eastern European countries. We informed them about the results of the last two workshops of the project. We had a detailed discussion about how we can enrich the scale of biodiversity information and how we can have a synergistic effect by integrating other sectors’ data. This fits into our objective – that other sectors (e.g. agriculture) should be incorporated into the biodiversity information system. CEEweb is active in the aligned realisation of the Water Framework Directive and Natura 2000 programme. As a result of this meeting, we will intensify our cooperation and actively take part in each other’s programmes.
The University also met with the Regional Environmental Authority’s Director and the staff of the Nature Protection Department. REA is responsible for the state of natural value and the environment. They do not have their own database; they use available data. The BID-REX partners and REA reconciled those data resources. As a governmental organisation, the Hortobágy National Park Directorate’s information is available and free of charge. Environmental Assessment Plans are sent to the REA for authorisation and are also an important source of data. These are potential new sources for the creation of a regional open database. The participation of REA is planned throughout the lifetime of the BID-REX project.
During all three meetings, the BID-REX partners discussed the scale of available data and the need for creating a georeference based open data system which will better satisfy the needs of decision-makers. This will result in a new and effective data flow which could be an effective tool to integrate biodiversity information into other sectors’ development plans and processes.
