Brussels, 03/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 3 May, the European Commission approved a new strategy to protect biodiversity within the European Union. Showing the Commission's resolve to tackle the biodiversity crisis, this new multi-sectoral approach will put the EU on track for halting biodiversity loss by 2020. The strategy will, however, only attain its goals if the Commission cooperates with the other institutions, NGOs, and the different sectors and contact persons involved in order to live up to the objectives of the EU 2020 strategy.
Objectives. Based on a sound scenario for keeping in line with progress and commitments, the new strategy will allow the root causes of the problem of biodiversity to be tackled. It focuses on a number of concrete targets that will require clear action and particularly well-defined responsibilities. This comes just at the right moment - priorities have been set and the European institutions have begun discussion on the new multi-annual financial framework that will set priorities for EU spending in the post-2013 period.
The strategy will focus on six concrete objectives to: (1) boost efforts to safeguard species and habitats in the context of the Natura 2000 network; (2) rebuild at least 15% of EU ecosystems that have been damaged, using green infrastructures that will allow areas literally alienated from each other by road and rail networks and urbanisation to be linked again, and maintaining healthy ecosystems; (3) ensure that farmers and forestry workers contribute to biodiversity through sustainable management of their activities; (4) guarantee sustainable fishing with, as Janez Potocnik said, incentive for farmers, foresters and fishermen who must be more active on the nature protection front, which is also to their advantage; (5) combat invasive species - the uncontrolled spread of non-native plant and animal species, which causes considerable biodiversity losses in Europe and annual losses of €12.5 billion for the EU; and (6) act to combat any disappearance of biodiversity at world level. “This is a global fight”, Potocnik said.
Mandates. Action that falls within the strategy today is in line with two major pledges: (1) the commitment taken by EU leaders in March 2010 to halt the loss of biodiversity and then to protect, value and restore biodiversity and ecosystems in the EU by 2020; and (2) the global commitments made in Nagoya (Japan) in October 2010 in the context of the convention on biological diversity, where world leaders adopted a package of 20 measures to address biodiversity loss worldwide over the coming decade.
Nature of the strategy and problem. Current global rates of species extinction and habitat loss are now running “up to 1,000 times the natural rate”, notes Janez Potocnik. In the EU, a quarter of all animal species is threatened with extinction, 88% of all fish stocks are over-exploited or significantly depleted, biodiversity is fragmented, land can no longer deliver, and the threat is far more real than on other environmental fronts (such as climate change). “This is important as it is not only a matter of witnessing the disappearance of species and habitats but also because services rendered by nature are under threat”, Potocnik said. This relates to: (1) our food; (2) the air we breathe as well as other services delivered by ecosystems such as purification (e.g. drinking water in the town of Vienna, Austria, where water is purified thanks to the surrounding mountains and to the 32,000 hectares of alpine forests, thus making water treatment plants for Vienna not necessary); and (3) pollination. In France, 35% of food resources depend on pollination by bees, among other insects. In the EU, pollination by insects represents an economic value of around €15 billion annually. The protection of the diversity of species and habitats allows the beauty of nature to be preserved, but is also valuable for rational reasons from the economic point of view. It is therefore better to pay now rather than have to pay for repairing the damage later, the commissioner said. Companies could lose up to US$ 6,000 billion by 2050 if nothing is done, with losses in terms of prosperity of US$2-4.5 billion within 50 years, according to EEB studies on ecosystems and the natural world.
Response. The Greens/EFA Group takes the view that the Commission is off the mark. It should have presented a detailed policy project for attaining the revised EU objective on halting biodiversity loss by 2020. (G.B./transl.jl)