On June 12, 2019 at the main campus of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in Sofia, the First National Workshop on Mapping and Assessment for Integrated Ecosystem Accounting within the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 MAIA project was held. A total of 38 stakeholders attended the Workshop. There were local participants from the MAIA partners and representatives from the Executive Environmental Agency (Ministry of Environment and Waters, National Statistical institute, Executive Forest Agency (Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Forests), NGO, researchers, and other experts. The workshop discussions evolved around the accounts currently used in policy decisions, policy priorities and process for monetary valuation of ecosystem services on national level since in Bulgaria this is currently not performed. The matter of the key data gaps was also mentioned. The main actors that will be involved in the process are representatives from the Central government institutions and from Academic and research institutions, and MAIA will contribute to establishing “know how” transfer, country-to-country support and sharing.
MAIA partners from Bulgaria:
- National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences*, incl. Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and the Forest Research Institute – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences;
- Executive Forest Agency – Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Forests;
- National Statistical institute.
Contact person: Assoc. Prof. Boian Koulov (NIGGG), Assoc. Prof. Stoyan Nedkov (NIGGG)
Full report can be found at the project website http://www.ecosystemaccounts.org/home/maia.jsp.
* The National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is an ESP institutional member in Bulgaria.