Asia-Europe experts to meet in Jakarta

Asia-Europe experts to meet in Jakarta

JAKARTA: Around 250 high-profile environmental experts from Asia
and Europe will gather this week in Jakarta to discuss energy,
conflict, natural resource management and other issues, the
Indonesian biodiversity foundation, Kehati, said.

Titled "1/3 of Our Planet: What Can Asia and Europe do for
Sustainable Development?", the conference, which will be held
from Nov. 23 to Nov. 25, 2005, follows on from the three
round tables held since 2003 on sustainable development, climate
change and renewable energy.

Indonesian Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi
Shihab and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) executive
director Klaus Topfer will deliver the keynote addressees.

The meeting, which will be the largest Asia-Europe meeting on
the environment, seems to be timely.

"This conference on the topic of sustainable development,
particularly the question of energy and the environment, comes at
a crucial time of record-high oil prices, which calls for closer
cooperation between the two regions (continents). We are proud to
host such an important meeting in Indonesia," State Minister of
the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said.

Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) official Jessica Yom informed
The Jakarta Post that the recommendations of the meeting would be
presented to Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) governments through the
platform of the ASEM Environmental Ministerial meeting. They
would also be distributed to civil society organizations on both
continents.

The gathering, known as the Asia-Europe Environment Forum, is
co-organized by the Singapore-based ASEF, Germany's Hanns-Seidel
Foundation , and the Institute for Global Environmental
Strategies (IGES) and the UNEP and hosted by Kehati. --JP