Veronika McLaren Jan 8, 2012:

Good point made as far as grammar is concerned! We sometimes get "bogged down" analyzing sentences and miss the grammar...

Horst Huber (X) Jan 8, 2012:

The question should be rephrased to simply "beisteuern". Implied is "zu"; the specific program added expert competence to the overall program being described; and it happened to be in the environmental area. "Beisteuern auf" is not a legitimate phrase; the phrase here is "auf dem Gebiet ..." and it is adverbial.