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memorandum of understanding between uh the international union of railways the uic and the uh the world wildlife fund in central and eastern europe i think it's quite clear um that uh but i think this is linked of course to the whole reason why um that sustainable development of course is considered as being one of the main global challenges uh faced by the world uh and in particular how we deal with the environment and one of the important aspects of course of this is is how how transport and how the railways in particular uh can relate to this and it's something that the uic and its and our members work continuously to do with the ambition of placing railways as the backbone of a sustainable of sustainable future mobility uh well i think we're especially happy to be able to engage them with this on the world wildlife fund my name is simon fletcher the director of europe at the uic but to tell us way more about this and what the role of the uic is allow me to introduce you to uh who is our director general oswal over to you okay thank you simon so well good morning and welcome on this virtual signature that's a somehow a new concept so uh uh it's really my honor to address uh you today uh well i think that's very important for us uh to enter into this uh collaboration and i would like to thank the ceo and representative of the world wildlife central and eastern europe for their involvement in the memorandum of understanding with us it's a great pleasure for me to sign our memorandum of understanding here today as i know there will be many ways that we can work together on our common goals for us sustainability is central to our mission and vision for the railways we do things that right away are the front runners and global climate action and will play a much more important role in the future transport system as a low emission mode and backbone of the sustainability sustainable mobility system we are also one of the largest landowners in the developed world railways are responsible for maintaining land over a wide area and therefore we have a great responsibility and we should work to protect biodiversity uh railway land hosts a lot of broad range of habitats and species and that's the potential to build and operate the railways in a way that can help reverse the current flows of global biodiversity uh i i do think that that's a very important aspect in particular for the future since we are indeed uh trying to show that uh we should be the backbone since we are the most frugal board of transport and indeed we are but uh we need also to be very keen that our infrastructure indeed are friendly to biodiversity and that's the reason why i think that's very important that we are assigning this mou today uh according to the european biodiversity action plan for 2030 investing in la and deploying green infrastructure will be considered in planning and designing transport networks right where infrastructure should be an integral part of the natural landscape and the green networks that connect natural habitats as well as people the uic understands the benefits of cooperative partnership with other buddies and how that can help our members to learn and improve i am quite confident that working in partnership with wwef cee will help us to connect with members in central and eastern europe on the important topics of biodiversity and sustainability more broadly with this relationship we wish to encourage dialogue among uic members to share and promote best practice in building and managing biodiverse railways uic hopes that this relationship will strengthen our work in the danube capacity and region and also be a catalyst to grow to a global level with wwf as a last trauma we are happy to inform you that uic members take a proactive role within sustainable land use sector to provide solutions and best practice for the correct development of an environmentally responsible railway transport system within a period of three years the uac reverse project with its member will provide an overview of biodiversity issues for the first time within the railway industry at the international level we invite uic members to take part in this important project and we are pleased to be able to expand our network of contact with a wwf cee well we do things that we are prepared to play an important role and part of all the network advocacy in this regard i liked in support and shared of highways as clean environmentally friendly and sustainable cornerstone of green transport system i am quite happy to raise the level of ambition and commitment on sustainable land use topic and railways with your collaboration so i really do think that we will have a very productive collaboration since uh at uic we are definitely convinced and that's also the role of lucian datto who will manage the sustainability unit here in uic but for those questions we we need to have a holistic approach and that what i i said also during this speech we are not uh only working on question about emission but also biodiversity and all the aspects that are uh related to sustainability so for us uh it will be absolutely crucial that if we want to be a champion of sustainable sustainable transport we are a champion on all the aspects that are related to to our activity and biodiversity is definitely one of the most important ones so thank you i hope i have not been too long and i'm really happy that we we can sign or despite we will not beat face to face we will be able to sign this ebook thank you thank you very much indeed francois um a very important set of messages there about the role of um not only the railways of course but the uic as the as the global representation on of railways uh i'd like now to introduce um um andreas beckmann who as regional ceo of the world wildlife fund for central and eastern europe um is responsible for leading and coordinating the efforts of the world wildlife fund the global conservation organization to ensure a living planet for nature and people in and from the central and south eastern european area andreas the floor is yours it seems your microphone is not connected i think you might need to open your microphone here does it work now yeah absolutely okay great thanks thanks francois thanks simon um i'm uh pleased to be here i'm an avid tr um train traveler myself i think that for longer distances there is i think uh no better way to experience the landscape the cultures and the people of uh especially our region in central and southeastern europe than than from uh from a train um i've got many memories traveling through the train through the landscape the first time i went to transylvania in romania there's this majestic landscape uh going along the the drava river in uh in hungary um and also in croatia um and then also going through like the green hills or the carpathian mountains of ukraine um all by train um it also helps of course that that travel by train as you mentioned uh francois is one of the more environmentally friendly modes of travel of course next to bicycling and hiking but for longer term longer distances and certainly in terms of energy efficiency but also in terms of emissions anywhere between 10 and 20 times less polluting than air travel and indeed we at wf central and eastern europe have a travel policy that underlines that any journey that can be made in 19 hours or less by overnight train should be done so and we do so according to my very rough calculations over the last 20 years i've spent i think about a half at least 400 nights in a train and many more days so more than a year um and that has been a a nice experience but my purpose here is not just to uh to reminisce about night trains but to also to provide the bigger context um that the bigger the bigger picture um what is the big picture um i think it's a really big challenge as it's been eluded by francois and also by simon but also a big opportunity the relationship between us humans and the rest of the planet is dangerously unbalanced science tells us that we have less than 10 years to limit greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change uh wf's 2020 living planet report which just came out in september a biannual report it chronicles the the ongoing um and across the board decline of biological diversity across this planet in the last 50 years we have lost 68 percent of wild uh of wildlife populations on this planet 50 years 68 percent and it's massive and this is amounting increasingly to an existential threat for ourselves and our civilization it is no accident that the five top global risks that were identified by the world economic forum in its report its annual report that came out in january all five of them were environment related including climate change including biodiversity lost so we're facing a global existential challenge one that affects not only our planet but also ourselves our natural world but also ourselves our lives our livelihoods our welfare our wellbeing our well-being and and as the living planet report underlines uh and as you have alluded as well uh francois we need to address not just the climate change but also the biodiversity laws in fact they are connected to those two twin challenges uh we can't do one uh or just the other um and to do this we have to fundamentally change uh the way we approach um the way we the way we are living on this planet um this is not just about fiddling around the edges this is uh really we need a new deal for nature and people for the planet and and also for our region here in central and southeastern europe the the region that we're talking about central and southeastern europe is europe's treasure chests for nature we call it the green heart of europe from the carpathian mountains to the danube delta it includes many of the continents greatest wilderness areas as well as significant populations of brown bears wolves links bison other wild animals and a leading threat to this natural capital is fragmentation as infrastructure and other development criss-cross and dissect natural habitats into into smaller and smaller pieces making those pieces increasingly unviable isolating wildlife populations decreasing the overall resilience of these ecosystems in the face of climate change the living planet report which i mentioned before it tells us that transportation accounts for about 15 percent of our ecological footprint overall we need to travel less and we our response to the covet pandemic has in many cases shown that this is indeed possible in fact we can sign an mou without traveling halfway across the continent but where transportation is needed public transport trans public transportation will be an important part of the solution and here railways have a really key role to play like other infrastructure railways can dissect habitats and thus negatively impact the movement of animals uh to make the ecosystems less viable and we need to minimize those impacts as much as possible through smart design uh measures such as green bridges tunnels that allow the free movement of of species for this reason on behalf of the wf central and eastern europe i'm very pleased to sign this memorandum of understanding with the international union of railways the agreement focuses geographically on the region of central and southeastern europe including bulgaria the czech republic hungary moldova romania slovakia and ukraine it foresees the exchange of experience and expertise as well as cooperation on biodiversity conservation particularly with regard to maintaining and enhancing ecological corridors protecting wildlife but as you mentioned also francois uh management of the significant land of holdings that railway companies have um i said that we're facing a really big challenge the very future of our civilization but every challenge presents also an opportunity for a solution uh climate change and biodiverse biodiversity loss are by other nature complex they're multifaceted um challenges that require a whole multiplicity of solutions thousands millions of opportunities for solutions that add up to the existential threat we are facing and it's in this light i welcome this opportunity to cooperate with the the international union of railways to identify and promote some of the many solutions that we need to secure a living planet for people and nature as we like to say at wf together possible i'm very pleased to be working with you that's it for me i think we can get out the pens uh just to find it but first thank you very much indeed yes gentlemen if you would um please sign your copy of the uh of the memorandum and uh well now that i have found my my my pain i think that is that indeed something that i forgot in my uh in my speech that the sense of urgency i think that's definitely something we should highlight okay okay all set okay yeah i just um i hope somebody's taking a picture absolutely yes in charge of all that yeah okay the picture is okay for you okay your mic is not active okay so well it was uh well i think that's an experience that we will uh well perhaps do again with other institutions and as you say they think that it shows that we don't really have to uh to travel a lot for improving collaboration and uh well i'm pretty sure it will be very successful and as i said and perhaps i didn't assist enough on that in my intervention myself the world the the good world is his urgency and at least in uac and in for the sector uh we we do share that we have to act now and uh to propose solutions that are not solution in 10 15 years and rely on some structural innovations that will save us with some kind of magics but to use what we have at our disposal today and uh the innovations that we have around the corner you know uic is a technical organization uh to be sure that we have a solution that our solution that will be rapid to implement so i i really appreciate this part of your your speech so great okay if i if i could just add i mean there's been a lot of a number of people that have been involved in this i'm not i think aware of all of them but i'm aware of two i think top ones one is on uh the side of the uic pinard um and on our side that we have central and eastern europe tilde guard meyer so big thanks to you for doing all of the yomen leg work for putting this together thank you very much thank you very much i think i think i think ladies and gentlemen the time is rapidly approaching that that if uh if everybody is content that we can probably draw this event to uh to a close i can do a quick sound maybe when we are all able to physically get together again andreas it would be an opportunity indeed i look forward to jumping on a train and uh and coming to that meeting yes yeah yeah and the champion will be your own uac okay great thank you thank you very much everybody who's joined in uh and uh and if indeed if you would like to listen to the whole of this event um it has been recorded and will be uploaded onto the uic's youtube channel uh in the in the coming uh in the coming days thank you very much indeed and uh goodbye and have a nice day everybody any questions on actually the screen um but just we have a couple of minutes uh i'm very sorry if there is anyone i want to ask any question no i can tell them to unmute themselves maybe not i checked the assignment thank you very much simon for everything okay thank you very much for the excellent job for this agreement okay thank you so much bye-bye see you soon face-to-face bye-bye thank you