The seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA-7) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) opens today and will continue until 16 November 2001, in Montreal, Canada. The meeting will be followed by the Open-ended Inter-sessional Meeting on the Strategic Plan, National Reports, and Implementation of the Convention, which will meet from 19-21 November 2001. Following the opening day of Plenary discussions, SBSTTA-7 is expected to meet in two working groups. Working Group I will focus on forest biodiversity, the primary theme of the meeting, with emphases on: status, trends and threats; options for conservation and sustainable use; and enabling activities addressing the underlying causes of forest biodiversity loss and degradation. Working Group II will address: agricultural biodiversity; the plant conservation strategy; incentive measures; and indicators and environmental impact assessment. The working groups will meet from Tuesday to Thursday. On Friday, the Plenary session will consider the reports of the working groups as well as proposed agendas, dates and venues for SBSTTA-8 and SBSTTA-9. 

Jan Plesnik (Czech Republic) will serve as the Chair of SBSTTA-7. The recommendations of both SBSTTA-6 and SBSTTA-7 will be reported to the sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6) to be held from 8-19 April 2002, in the Hague, the Netherlands.

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ENB Summary of  CBD SBSTTA-6 ( HTML or PDF )
CBD Secretariat web site with official documents and Information for participants (doc and pdf)
SBSTTA issues on: Forest Biological Diversity
Preparation of the Strategic Plan for the Convention
Managing Biodiversity in Agricultural Ecosystems
The second national reports
ENB's Introduction to CBD
German CHM COP Decisions Database