This conference formed part of the process of taking forward the issues highlighted in the environmental chapter of UK Government’s White Paper of March 1999 Partnership for Progress and Prosperity — Britain and the Overseas Territories.

The conference was organised by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) Environment, Science & Energy Department (ESED) with UKOTCF support.

The meeting aimed to bring together the governmental, NGO and other organisations in the UK, the UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs) and elsewhere who are stakeholders in the UKOTs’ environment, thus facilitating joint approaches to the challenging work needed to conserve these important natural assets and resources.

It aimed also to identify the key priority needs as seen by people working in the UKOTs.

Linked to this was the objective of further clarifying ways for them to access the skills and commitment of the range of UK government departments and agencies (co-ordinated by the FCO) and NGOs (co-ordinated through UKOTCF).

It was seen as the start of a process. The intention was not to solve problems immediately, but to set priorities for action, identify people and organisations with the range of experience relevant to these issues, and explore the best ways to use the resources available. The results of the conference would be feed directly into policies and programme implementation, and would input into another meeting (Gibraltar in 2000) – which had been in preparation by UKOTCF and Gibraltar partners from well before the planning of the London meeting – as well as other initiatives.

pdf includes:

Programme Day 1

Programme Day 2

Moving Forward- Final Session

Opening Speech by Geoff Hoon MP

UKOTCF Reply.