Habitat Contact Forum is an arena for cooperation on habitat conservation issues in the Barents Region including adjacent marine areas. The aim is to achieve increased focus on proper management of existing protected areas, the need for additional protected areas and other measures relevant for habitat conservation.
The conference is organized every second year and it gathers representatives from management authorities, scientific institutions (including students) and civil society (NGOs) from all over the Barents region. It was established in 1999 to focus and coordinate nature conservation issues in the region. The latest Forum was held in 2019 in Murmansk, and the next one was scheduled for 2021, but got postponed until autumn 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Habitat Contact Forum
International Contact Forum on Habitat Conservation in the Barents Region (HCF) is one of the key nature conservation activities of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council’s Working Group on Environment and its Subgroup on Nature and Water.
HCF IX in Oulu, June 2017
Photo: IBS
The HCF X Resolution states:
The X Habitat Contact Forum emphasized the importance of maintenance and further development of networks and protected areas for conservation of biodiversity in a changing climate. The green infrastructure of the landscape should be considered in protection planning.