In 1995, during the Euro- Mediterranean Conference and the Euromed Civil Forum in Barcelona (Spain), a group of NGOs decided to form an organization to bring together Mediterranean civil society in order to defend Mediterranean-ness as a basic idea of social and cultural coexistence, promoting the defence and protection of the environment within a framework of sustainable development. This was how MED Forum, Mediterranean NGO Network for Ecology and Sustainable Development, was formed. The result of the demands that many NGOs from different countries of the Mediterranean Basin, -200 people from 80 NGOs from 18 countries from the entire region - had made during the III Mediterranean Environmental Forum, organized in Barcelona in 1995 by the Catalan NGO EcoMediterrània. At the beginning there were 9 NGOs from 9 Mediterranean countries and now, five years later, there are now 102 member NGOs from 23 countries on the banks of the Mediterranean.

MED Forum is now present in all the states of the Mediterranean Basin and is represented in the main international bodies involved in the Mediterranean. 25% of the NGOs that belong to the Network are from countries in the North that belong to the European Union; 18% are from countries in the North that do not belong to the European Union (Balkans, etc.); 25% are from countries in the South (Maghrib) and the remaining 32% from countries in the East (from Turkey to Egypt).

Our Network is a member, at the same level as the Nation States, of the Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development, a United Nations body linked to the Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean (Barcelona, 1975) and the Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP), of which it is also an observer member. It is also an observer member of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and of its Appendix 4, which affects the northern Mediterranean, as well as a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with which we are collaborating to develop the Mediterranean Programme, through their future Mediterranean office in Malaga (Spain).

Other international organizations also recognize the presence of MED Forum, but the one with whom we have the strongest ties is the European Union. This body has supported MED Forum since its creation in 1995.

In its short life, the MED Forum Network has already achieved the first of its aims: to remind all the international forums that the Mediterranean exists and is under threat. By representing the Mediterranean NGOs in international forums, we have become one of the "voices of the Mediterranean" recognized by these bodies, thus providing the organizations that make up our Network with a platform to act on the international level that is stronger and more effective obviously, than what they could achieve on their own. Furthermore, through another of the main activities of our Network, the organization of international meetings of NGOs, we encourage dialogue and the exchange of opinions.

In addition, cooperation between NGOs to perform sustainable development projects and environmental protection projects, is one of the best things MED Forum can contribute to preserving the Mediterranean Basin and improving the quality of life of its inhabitants. In this sense, performing cooperation projects for sustainable development, MED Forum's Project Bank offers the Network's members the support needed to make their projects technically and financially viable, through a project assessment, support, monitoring, design and performance service. Finally, our Network's other major area of activity is based on carrying out Mediterranean-wide campaigns to raise awareness, which seek to make people more aware, more concerned and to seek solutions to the main problems that the Mediterranean Basin suffers on the regional level.

MED Forum's aim is to promote the defence and protection of the environment in the Mediterranean region in a setting of sustainable development. We are convinced the preservation of the environment and nature is only possible if there are links of solidarity between individuals and between peoples, between them and their surroundings and between those living now and future generations.