A productive meeting was held on the 30th August to discuss the NBN Atlas’ sensitive species policy.
Attendees included representatives from country agencies, alongside recording scheme members and NGO’s.
Aims of the meeting
These were to:
- Agree a first draft of criteria to apply to the sensitive species list
- Agree a frequency for review
- Discuss who should get the final say in a dispute
- Discuss who should be responsible for reviewing the criteria and sensitive species list
- Discuss how sensitive species should be displayed on the NBN Atlas
The group was able to meet a consensus on all of the aims, and made suggestions for development that would help improve and refine the screening of sensitive species.
Next steps
The recommendations will be circulated to the wider Network as part of a draft Sensitive Species Policy for comment. From this we aim to get feedback on a first draft of the policy from a focused group by mid October. We should then have something to send out to the wider Network by the end of November, with feedback concluded and the final policy written by end of January 2018.