From preparatory phase to real infrastructure – signing the LifeWatch MoU

At the conclusion of the Amsterdam meeting, we reached the point where people needed to put a real commitment to the future of LifeWatch on paper. Wouter Los, coordinator of the preparatory phase, outlined the central questions behind it all. How do the different layers of biodiversity work together? What changes biodiversity, can we manage this and how? We need an environment to make this complex task possible.

So far 21 countries are interested in getting involved – Albania, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Rep, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK. Eight of these have signed a Memorandum of Intent, and at the event yesterday, five of these countries had sent representatives to put pen to paper on a Memoradum of Understanding for the Start up activities - Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Spain. Not only that, the meeting also saw the signature of the national MoU of the Dutch LifeWatch Consortium.

This leaves LifeWatch in full start up mode for 2011, with 2012 to 2015 earmarked for construction and also operations. Full operations should begin in 2016.

We’ll be watching with interest!