IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Walder, C.; Dick, G.; Baumller, A.; Weatherley, J. | |
| Towards European Biodiversity Monitoring | |
| 2006 Full Book | |
Europe encompasses a great diversity of habitats and species. Despite the value of this natural heritage and many efforts to protect it, recent reports show that the diversity of our flora and fauna continues to be lost at a dramatic rate. Given this situation, Europe has a tremendous responsibility to halt the loss of its biodiversity, and to take all necessary action to protect its remaining natural heritage. The European Union has identified nature and biodiversity as one of its key areas of environmental policy requiring legislation at a European level. It adopted its Biodiversity Strategy in February 1998, which aims to anticipate, prevent and attack the causes of significant reductions in or losses to biodiversity. The EUs most significant contribution to protecting biodiversity has been made through the Birds and Habitats Directives, which are key policy instruments to achieve favourable conservation status for the most important habitats and species. Special Protected Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) designated under the Birds and Habitats Directives, together form the Natura 2000 network which currently represents about a sixth of the total land area of the EU. The aim of the Natura 2000 network is to maintain or restore the most important European habitats and species, to favourable conservation status. In addition to selecting and managing these sites, Member States are obliged to report on the conservation status of habitats and species within their territory every six years. The first report was produced in 2001 and concentrated on the transposition of the legislation and the current status of the site designation process. The second report, covering the period 2001 to 2006, will include (based on best available information) a first assessment of the conservation status of all species and habitats of Community Interest, listed in the Habitats Directive. The European Habitats Forum (EHF), as a member of the Habitats Committee Scientific Working Group, strongly supports the development of a robust monitoring scheme. Therefore the EHF co-ordinated the production of this report with the strong support of its member organisations and partners. The aim of this exercise was to:1) Test the EU reporting format and the guidance documents2) Collect some best practice examples 3) Disseminate preliminary results concerning the conservation status of European protected habitats and species. To this end, EHF experts selected 8 habitats from Annex I and 14 species from Annexes II, IV and V of the Habitats Directive, as well as 5 bird species listed in the Birds Directive. Those 27 habitats and species are found in 5 of the biogeographic regions. Although this reporting obligation is restricted to the Habitats Directive, bird species were also included because it is also necessary to undertake such an exercise for bird species and it is likely that a similar monitoring system will be established for birds in the near future. The 27 habitats and species were generally chosen because of relatively high levels of data availability and expertise within the EHF network. In total 37 national reports were produced. In the case of the Eurasian Lynx (_Lynx lynx_) 5 different country reports (including one from Switzerland) were used to develop an overall report showing the status of this species within the Alps subregion of the Alpine biogeographic region. Although it was possible to complete the first monitoring reports for most of the habitats and species, a lack of data made it difficult to complete major parts of the requested assessment. EHF therefore recommends that Member States significally improve the data situation for future reporting periods. When looking at overall assessments of the conservation status of the selected habitats and species, based on these national reports (with the exception of Switzerland), the results are disappointing. More than 60% of habitats and species were assessed as being in a "bad" conservation status and 22% had an "unknown" status. Only 6% of the sample ranked as being in a "favourable" condition. Out of the assessed 19 species, 12 had 'bad' conservation status, 4 had 'inadequate' conservation status, 2 had 'unknown' conservation status, 1 had 'favourable' conservation status. Three of these species were assessed in more than one country. Concerning the habitats, 8 habitats were assessed, 4 bad, 2 bad/unknown depending on the country, 1 unknown, 1 favourable. Three habitats were assessed in more than one country. |
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