Relaxing field trip

Hi All,

Yesterday Ildiko and me took part in an excursion to the closest Natural Park to Madrid. This park is surrounding the river called Duraton, which has created that enormous valley on the left picture. In this valley approximately 600 pairs of griffon vultures are nesting. Luckily, we had the opportunity to take a closer look on them.
This national park also contains some really picturesque villages, reminding back to the medieval ages. But these settlemenst are not only inhabited by humans, but other creatures such as the white storks too. :)

Wishing all of you a relaxing weekend,
Veronika

From the Madrid Biodiversity Conference

Greetings from the CEEweb staff from Spain! We are here on a high level EU Biodiversity Conference organised by the Spanish EU Presidency. The EC and MS came here to discuss post 2010 EU biodiversity policies including the new 2020 biodiversity target. To tell you the truth we do not really here new things, and if you have seen our latest e-mails regarding the Conference, this would be nothing new for you. So the point seems to be to rally support from the Member States to support an ambitious new target on the March European Council meeting.
Today I will meet Francois Wakenhut, Head of the biodiversity policy Unit at DG ENV to discuss the CEEweb position on the future target and policies. Hope it will go well :) - I will try to give you a feedback also on this later the day. Cheers, Saro