Working groups
Working Groups are appointed by Council to facilitate our work in support of efforts by partners in the UK Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies to conserve their environment. This is done by means of (mostly virtual but occasionally physical) meetings and other approaches for information exchange, networking within and between regions, coordinating activities within the UKOTs/CDs and Britain, identifying needs for advice and help, and devising ways of responding to requests. This can include trying to devise ways of influencing UK Government in response to UKOT needs, generating information for Forum News, our web-database, virtual tours, other media to raise the profile of UKOTs and conservation issues.
At present, there are three regional working groups. The three current working groups cover the Wider Caribbean (the 5 Caribbean UKOTs and Bermuda), the Southern Oceans (the six UKOTs in the South Atlantic/Antarctic, Pitcairn and the British Indian Ocean Territory), and Europe Territories (Gibraltar, Cyprus Sovereign Base Areas, and the Crown Dependencies).
To join a working group, please apply to the Secretary of that group (https://www.ukotcf.org.uk/contact-details/). For open-ness and to overcome an asymmetry in information, UKOTCF Council has decided that the website should carry a periodically updated list of oganisations which see papers from each regional working group. Here are links to the current lists for:
Europe Territories WG (to be added shortly).
Some non-regional working groups are being set up on various topics; notes on these will be added later.
Between meetings, which would normally be held on a quarterly basis, a newsletter used to be published by regional working groups; this aimed to provide a continuous flow of news items, issues and progress. This has tended to be replaced by email circulations by WG Secretaries.
To go straight to the earlier newsletters click on the relevant link below:
Europe Territories Working Group