Under its mandate for 2005-06, the Strategic Steering Group (SSG) on WFD and Agriculture has initiated numerous activities including five issues reports and two important conferences hosted under the UK and Austrian presidency, respectively. Due to the huge amount of information and debates produced by these activities, a synthesis of the SSG activities during the duration of this mandate was identified to be necessary. The European Commission, DG Environment commissioned Ecologic to prepare this synthesis document.

Under the mandate of the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), Ecologic and the Warsaw Agricultural University (WAU) have been commissioned to update the working document "WFD and Agriculture – Analysis of the Pressures and Impacts". The initial report has been prepared in the frame of the DG RTD project "Common Agricultural Policy meets Water Framework Directive – Opportunities for the future" and presented at the UK Presidency conference on WFD and agriculture in September 2005.

The Chinese legal framework on public interest litigation in environmental matters shall be strengthened in order to address threatening large-scale environmental damage due to China's industrial development process. Existing concepts of other countries have exemplary character. In the framework of the project, Ecologic drew up a report on public interest litigation in Germany, which was subsequently  presented at a workshop organised by the GTZ in Beijing in the fall of 2006. The report and the presentation are available for download.

The environment is a cross-cutting theme in the European funding policies. Which are the environmental and agricultural funding opportunities for 2007-2013, and what are the consequences for landscape change and sustainable development? Rainer Müssner in collaboration with Katrina Marsden gave a presentation focusing on these issues at the 14th International Symposium on Problems of Landscape – Ecological Research.

The Free University of Berlin organised a conference on behalf of The Permanent European conference for the study of the rural landscape (PECSRL) from 4 until 9 September 2006, focusing on the theme: European rural future: Landscape as an Interface. Rainer Müssner from Ecologic gave a presentation about the importance of landscape issues in public policies. This presentation focused on the following key questions: Is "landscape" a priority issue on the national / European policy agenda?, do we have a coherent "landscape policy"? and what can be done to increase the political "weight" of landscape issues?

There are obvious successes in Transboundary Water Management. How can the Landscape sector profit from these experiences, considering there exists an insufficient level of co-operation between states? Rainer Müssner in collaboration with Eduard Interwies gave a presentation focusing on these issues at the 22nd conference of The Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape.

The IPDEV research project partners met in London at the two-day workshop "Intellectual Property Rights and Sustainable Development". Together with a high level group of experts and stakeholders, the project results and policy recommendations were discussed. Stephanie Schlegel from Ecologic Institute presented the findings on "Geographical Indications and their contribution to environmental quality and linkages to social & cultural issues". Her presentation is available for download. Benjamin Görlach and Dora Schaffrin spoke about the international Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

This Ecologic Brief gives an overview of the main results and policy implications of the HarmoniCOP project. HarmoniCOP provides a comprehensive knowledge base for public participation in water management.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) seeks to create a system of graduated co-operation and association contracts. The core will be a pan-European internal market. However, the integration of other policies, most notably in the areas of security co-operation, energy and the environment, play a crucial role. Other geopolitical actors like Russia will compete with the EU on the concepts that will define the common European space of the future.

The treatment and disposal of solid municipal waste can be technically achieved by methods other than above-ground landfilling ("Goal 2020" of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment). These methods will not trigger socially unacceptable costs. There is a big variety of ways to achieve the goal 2020. This publication is a contribution to the conference "Abfallkolloquium 2005" organised by SIDAF in Freiberg on 6-7 October 2005. The publication summarises the results of an Ecologic project entitled "Future strategy of municipal waste management – Goal 2020".

This project aims to support the countries of the Sava river basin (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia & Montenegro) in their long-term objective of elaborating a Sava River Basin Management Plan.

Most foundations have a charter aimed at improving the state of the world in which we live. The single most important resource to achieve this goal is through financial donations, or the income generated from endowments. The reputation risk of endowments being associated with speculative or unethical business practices, or investments that are in contrast with a foundation’s objective, has increasingly been an agenda item of foundation boards. In this project the PRIME Toolkit has been developed to help foundations manage their endowments in a socially responsible way.

In the end of 2005 the parties to the Kyoto Protocol convened to decide on a number of operational aspects of the international climate regime. More importantly, they also agreed to launch consultations on future mitigation commitments for the period after 2012, when the current "Kyoto targets" expire. Dr. Camilla Bausch and Michael Mehling analyse the outcome of the meeting in an article and discuss the summit’s significance as a first step in the further evolution of the international climate regime.

This project covers new environmental policy initiatives in 2006 in the EU Member States and Acceding Countries. Relevant information is collected and analysed against the background of the renewed Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) and the Lisbon Strategy.