New WECF publication: Protecting Europe's Nature
The future of the Nature 2000 Network
22.03.2006 |Isabel Ripa Julia
Nature and biodiversity are included as a top priority on the Sixth Environmental Action Plan (EAP), ‘Environment 2010: Our Future, Our Choice’, which sets out the EU's environmental policy agenda until 2012.
The EU Sustainable Development Strategy establishes as a priority halting the loss of biodiversity in the EU by 2010.
At the international level: during the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, world leaders committed themselves to significantly reducing global biodiversity loss by 2010.
The 1992 Habitats Directive aims to protect wildlife species and their habitats. Each Member State is required to identify sites of European importance and to put in place a special management plan to protect them, combining long-term preservation with economic and social activities, as part of a sustainable development strategy. These sites, together with those of the Birds Directive, make up the Natura 2000 network – the cornerstone of EU nature protection policy. In the EU-15 the Natura 2000 network was comprising more than 18 000 sites, covering over 17% of EU-15 territory, and was due to be completed in 2004.
With the enlargement of the EU to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta new opportunities and challenges for the EU’s nature and biodiversity efforts appear. The new Member States will significantly increase the land area of the EU, covering many unspoiled landscapes, forests, parks and wetlands and so increasing the Community’s biodiversity. Ensuring the protection of its rich biodiversity will require both funds and policies to protect and maintain nature from risks such as land fragmentation or loos of habitats as results of new infrastructure and urban development
Download the full WECF Briefing
The future of the Natura 2000 network - January 2006
