Date:	18 July 2008
Venue:	Bogotá, Colombia
Co-organizers:	The City Government of Bogotá, Capital District The State of Cundinamarca The Autonomous Regional Corporation of Cundinamarca (CAR) The Alexander von Humboldt Institute
Participants:	20 participants representing planning officials of the states and capital cities conforming the Central Region and of environmental entities and the academia.

As an integral part of the project on Environmental Policy Guidelines for the Central Region of Colombia initiated at the beginning of 2008 by the Bogotá-Cundinamarca Regional Planning Board (BCRPB), three workshops were implemented, aimed at the participatory building of the environmental policy guidelines for the region involving key regional stakeholders.

The first workshop had the main objective of socializing with the regional stakeholders the results of the joint desk research and analyzing the existing information related to legislation, plans, programmes and projects on the matter, and to define jointly the conceptual framework for a Regional Ecological Structure for the Central Region. Based on the results obtained, the second workshop was centered on the discussion of the preliminary proposal of the Regional Ecological Structure and of the environmental policy guidelines. The third and last workshop aimed at the final joint revision of the policy guidelines, the definition of a concerted action plan with short, medium and long term goals; and priority projects by the regional stakeholders.

The main project outcome is the concerted definition and identification of the main components of the Regional Ecological Structure for the Central Region of Colombia, stressing the close relationship that exists between natural and man-made components, and the human being.

The product of this participatory process is viewed as an efficient instrument to facilitate the integration of key policy guidelines to the different territorial entities that comprise the Central Region for its efficient and sustainable environmental management. The governments comprising the Central Region will be able to count on an instrument to support the definition of environmental policies for the Central Region as a whole at the national level.