State environmental council of Poland and its links with the network of European councils

The paper presents political, economic and social background to establish the State Environmental Council of Poland (PROS) as well as main activities and personal composition of this body. The PROS has been legally enforced by the "Environmental Act" and acts as an advisory body to the Minister of Environment. The Council has been since 1999 accepted as an associated and since 2002 as a full member of the network of European Environmental and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils (EEAC). Its permanent activity is carried on by six working groups: (1) Energy and Global Warming; (2) Agriculture; (3) Costal Zones and Fishery; (4) Environmental Governing, (5) Sustainable Development and (6) Biodiversity. The PROS mirrored this activities by establishing the same WGs in its internal structure The PROS consists of 25 members in the current term (2001/2006). They are meeting at plenary sessions (4 yearly) at which apart from presenting papers on crucial general issues some selected key environmental problems are considered to give an advice to the Minister to facilitate the decision making process. For two years PROS has been serving apprenticeship for hosting the annual EEAC summit linked usually with the thematic conference. The last plenary annual session in Berlin recommended entrusting Poland organization of the summit in the year 2006, in organizational cooperation with the Finnish council, because Finland at this period will take over leadership of UE. The Minister of the Environment proposed issues of the conference, associated with the summit: Balanced forest management. Event, obout those issues, in the obvious way should take place in closeness of forest areas and it was recognized, that best,its localization would be Karkonosze complex, which is still curing wounds after the invasion of acid rains of the Black Triangle, that in 70 divided by 80's damaged the Karkonoski National Park in a large degree.