The world today is undergoing a period of rapid change as a result of technological advances, rapid growth in the availability of information, and political and economic restructuring. These changes have had a profound effect on the environment of the planet and its natural ecosystems. The distribution of these ecosystems and their constituent species are consequently changing, biological diversity appears to be decreasing, and the climate is being altered resulting in a shift in position of major agriculture zones. These changes are now collectively termed global change.
As the effects of global change become increasingly evident, scientists have called for more and improved data to enable them to understand the processes involved and to permit the development of improved models for more accurate and reliable forecasts of global changes and their consequences. At the same time, national planners and resource managers have been seeking reliable data and information on which to base national development policies and strategies, to manage relevant national programmes, and to achieve a wiser use and management of national renewable natural resources, including those of crop and forest lands.
Recognition of the need for good data of the right types by national planners, governments and scientists, has led to the evolution of a system for studying global change known as the Global Observing System (GOS). GOS operates as three separate systems: the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS).
GTOS was launched in January 1996 to improve the data and information needed to better understand terrestrial environmental change in order to improve policy and decision-making. The major issues addressed by GTOS are: i) changes in land quality; ii) availability of freshwater resources; iii) loss of biodiversity; iv) climate change, and v) impacts of pollution and toxicity.
The GTOS Secretariat is currently hosted by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome. FAO is one of the five sponsors of the programme, the others include: International Council for Science (ICSU), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
GTOS seeks to assist countries to strengthen their capacity for systematic environmental assessment and monitoring of terrestrial ecosystems. The aim is to use existing data and information to generate products that are useful for policy and planning at the national, regional and global levels and to identify key data gaps.
The Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) programme is the first regional initiative of GTOS. Initiated in early 1999, it aims to reinforce information exchange on terrestrial ecosystems for global and regional studies. The Sub-regional Office for Central and Eastern Europe (SEUR) of FAO has hosted the regional programme in Budapest. SEUR provides technical assistance to the region (19 countries) on nutrition, food and agriculture. The governments of the region have demonstrated their concern for environmental problems by signing several global and European conventions (Annex 3).
A main objective of the CEE programme is to improve information access and availability of data to scientists, natural resource managers, policy makers and institutions, regarding terrestrial ecosystems. GTOS aims to build up a "partnership of partnerships", formed by linking existing monitoring sites and networks on terrestrial observations. A further objective is to test the feasibility of the GTOS concept - a first attempt to implement the global initiative.
To avoid duplication of efforts, the GTOS CEE programme has developed a partnership with other relevant international projects. The European Networking of Long-term Integrated Monitoring in Terrestrial Systems (NoLIMITS) initiative, directed by the Environmental Change Network (UK), has taken a leading role in the first phase of the regional programme. The International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network also has a Central European component. The participation of the GTOS CEE management team at the scientific ILTER meeting helped to find contacts and introduce the programme to institutions and researchers. The joint organization of a workshop with the UNEP GRID (Global Resource Information Database) programme also demonstrates efforts to harmonize activities related to environmental observations.
The first phase of the CEE programme (January-September 1999) consisted of four main components: a user needs assessment; detailed country studies for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic; organization of a workshop; and the preparation of the regional implementation plan.
A detailed user needs assessment has been carried out by sending a questionnaire to approximately 250 recipients in the region, as well as organizing interviews with environmental institutions during the visits to the countries. Altogether 27 institutions were visited by June 1999 and informed about the GTOS regional activities.
Four detailed Environmental Assessment Reports (Annex 1) were completed. National focal points for the four countries were selected to compile the documents. Shorter Environmental Reports have also been prepared for other selected countries in the region (Estonia, Bulgaria, Armenia, Lithuania and Latvia).
The GTOS CEE Synthesis Workshop was organized in Budapest, Hungary (9-10 September 1999) to present the preliminary findings of the country reports. It was organized by the FAO SEUR and the GTOS CEE coordinator, the EU NoLIMITS project and the GTOS Secretariat in Rome. It was managed in collaboration with the UNEP GRID Centre in Budapest, which held the 2nd EuroGRID meeting in Budapest from 7-8 September 1999. Approximately forty participants took part in the workshop representing Armenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States. International and funding agencies were represented by FAO, UNDP, UNEP and the World Bank.
