OREANDA-NEWS. August 14, 2008. The Turkmen capital hosts the Access to Justice two-day regional ecological seminar organized by the Ministry of Nature Protection of Turkmenistan under the EU Project Strengthening Public Participation and Civil Society Support to Implementation of Aarhus Convention. The international experts, the specialists of the departments of the Ministry of Nature Protection, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the local judiciary and advocates and the representatives of the international and non-governmental organisations took part in the seminar.

Turkmenistan was one of the first states in Central Asia to ratify the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in 1999. Along with other important international documents the Aarhus Convention underlies the national long-term ecological programme. Based on its provisions Turkmenistan adopted the legal and statuary acts regulating the environmental activity of the relevant bodies.

On the first day of the regional forum the participants including the experts from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan focused on the necessity of concerting efforts of the government nature conservation institutions particularly, general public and population to address challenges to ecological security. The participants exchanged views on the approaches to fulfilling the designated tasks. The overviews on the practice for implementing the provisions of the Aarhus Convention in the Central Asian countries were presented at the meeting.

On the second day the participants held the presentations and group discussions of the special document – the Guidelines on Access to Justice for Civil Society.