The international isolation of Serbia and Montenegro in the last 10 years has affected the NGO community, which suffered from the limitations on exchange programmes and international networking.

At present there are approximately 1,000 NGOs in Serbia and Montenegro, and roughly 130 of these have an environmental focus. Environmental NGOs represent one of the largest and most recognised groups of the non-governmental sector in Serbia and Montenegro. On average, Serbian and Montenegro's environmental NGOs have more active members than their counterparts in other Central and Eastern European countries. Many of them claim to have more than 1,000 active members, although this figure should be treated with caution.

Most NGOs are very young: 80 percent were officially registered during the 1990s. Approximately half of the environmental NGOs have PCs, fax machines or printers, and access to the Internet.

Environmental NGOs mostly engage in protecting endangered species, cleaning actions, environmental education, environmental impact assessments, and environmental information dissemination or networking.

Despite circumstances which made their work more complicated and difficult in the last decade, Serbian and Montenegro's environmental NGOs have proved vigorous enough to endure. Quite understandably, however, their number has decreased, and now only some players and a reduced number of the strongest grassroots organisations remain.

The vigour of the Serbian and Montenegro's environmental NGO movement became apparent when the REC Country Office Serbia and Montenegro started its activities in the Regional Environmental Reconstruction Programme for South Eastern Europe (REReP). Participating NGOs have shown considerable interest in many REReP activities. So far six NGO gatherings have taken place within the framework of the REReP, two of them held on a national scale in the course of six months. A national REReP NGO representative was elected in December 2000 as well as two regional coordinators in January and February 2001, for Central Serbia and Vojvodina respectively.

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