Ukraine–Germany Exchange on Biodiversity Monitoring Systems Strengthens Cooperation under EU Integration

On 30 April 2026, a Ukrain­ian del­e­ga­tion vis­it­ed the Nation­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Mon­i­tor­ing Cen­tre in Ger­many in Leipzig. The del­e­ga­tion includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine, the IKI Inter­face Ukraine project, imple­ment­ed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ), and Ukrain­ian Nature Con­ser­va­tion Group .

In Ukraine, bio­di­ver­si­ty mon­i­tor­ing is on a way of improve­ment and is going to be cen­tral­ly organ­ised and guid­ed by inter­na­tion­al and Euro­pean frame­works. The coun­try is a Par­ty to the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty and is com­mit­ted to imple­ment­ing the Kun­ming-Mon­tre­al Glob­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Frame­work. The devel­op­ment of a Nation­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Strat­e­gy and Action Plan is seen as a key ele­ment of Ukraine’s recon­struc­tion agen­da and its path towards sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.

Despite the sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges caused by the ongo­ing war, Ukraine con­tin­ues to advance the estab­lish­ment of a mod­ern bio­di­ver­si­ty mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem. Inter­na­tion­al sup­port, includ­ing through projects under the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Nature Con­ser­va­tion, Nuclear Safe­ty and Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion (BMUKN) in the frame­work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI), con­tributes to strength­en­ing insti­tu­tion­al capac­i­ties.

Planned devel­op­ments include the estab­lish­ment of a nation­al mon­i­tor­ing cen­tre and a cen­tralised dig­i­tal plat­form for bio­di­ver­si­ty data col­lec­tion and analy­sis. In this con­text, the expe­ri­ence of Germany’s Nation­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Mon­i­tor­ing Cen­tre, estab­lished in 2021, pro­vides valu­able ref­er­ence points.

A cen­tral focus of the exchange was the struc­ture and man­date of the Ger­man mon­i­tor­ing cen­tre and its con­tri­bu­tion to nation­al bio­di­ver­si­ty assess­ment. Par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed how bio­di­ver­si­ty mon­i­tor­ing is coor­di­nat­ed in Ger­many and which approach­es are being used to fur­ther devel­op and strength­en the sys­tem. In addi­tion, experts from the Fed­er­al Agency for Nature Con­ser­va­tion pre­sent­ed exam­ples of two nation­wide stan­dard­ised mon­i­tor­ing pro­grammes and shared select­ed results.

The Ukrain­ian del­e­ga­tion showed par­tic­u­lar inter­est in Germany’s fed­er­al coor­di­na­tion mech­a­nisms, action plan­ning process­es, and the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry devel­op­ment of an inte­grat­ed nation­al mon­i­tor­ing con­cept. Both sides under­lined the impor­tance of reli­able, high-qual­i­ty data as a foun­da­tion for effec­tive bio­di­ver­si­ty con­ser­va­tion. At the same time, it was acknowl­edged that clos­ing exist­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty knowl­edge gaps remains a com­plex task that requires a broad range of method­olog­i­cal approach­es.

The vis­it was orga­nized by the project “IKI Inter­face: Sup­port­ing Ukraine towards Ambi­tious and Inte­grat­ed Cli­mate Pol­i­cy (Green Ukraine)”, imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Nature Con­ser­va­tion, Nuclear Safe­ty and Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion (BMUKN) under the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI), in coop­er­a­tion with the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine.