Addressing the opening of the meeting, CMS Senior Advisor, Douglas Hykle, highlighted the continuing support for the CMS Siberian Crane Memorandum of Understanding agreed by the recent meeting of the CMS Conference of the Parties. He expressed satisfaction that the wetland project staff were already beginning to assess the sustainability of their activities, within the framework of a strengthened MoU, after completion of the six-year project in early 2009.

Mr. Khairbeck Mussabayev, Deputy Chairman of the Forest and Hunting Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture announced that on 23 November 2005, Kazakhstan's parliament had approved the draft law on accession to CMS, which is now awaiting presidential signature in the coming weeks.

The meeting reviewed in detail the project's implementation in the four participating countries: China, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Russian Federation. Kazakhstan, which initiated the project activities much later than the other partners, has been working intensively over the past year to compensate for its late start. The meeting highlighted strengths and weaknesses of the various national efforts to date, with useful exchanges of lessons learned and problem solving. All of the teams will need to redouble their efforts over the coming year, in anticipation of an indepth midterm review of the project in 2007.