Klaus Toepfer today signed an agreement on continued support to the Norwegian environmental centre GRID-Arendal. During the ten years GRID-Arendal has been operational, it has become a major source of environmental information. GRID-Arendal has had a significant impact on the dissemination of information about the state of the environment, said Minister Fjellanger. I would in particular like to draw attention to the work with our national State of the Environment reports. The public now have far better access to environmental information for their countries than previously.
Accessibility also increases considerably when reports are available on the Internet.
This report was produced by GRID-Arendal, and has been developed into an international model. Since then, GRID-Arendal has assisted almost 30 countries in making State of the Environment reports. These include State of the Environment of China in 1997. We in UNEP are very grateful for the support GRID-Arendal receives from the Norwegian govenment.