Environmental NGOs, ardent supporters of the EU’s birds and habitats directives, have welcomed the action plan presented by the European Commission on Thursday 27 April to improve delivery of these flagship pieces of nature legislation, though they felt it could have been stronger – in particular in terms of funding (see EUROPE 11776).
For WWF and BirdLife, the action plan has a number of points to commend it: - it pushes for the long-awaited completion of the Natura 2000 network of protected natural areas and the adoption of the conservation measures needed for all the sites and it will help the EU achieve its goal of stemming biodiversity loss by 2020 and will improve monitoring through the use of satellite imagery.
Still, the lack of funding and of specific measures to tackle the negative effects of the policies that are driving biodiversity loss – principally the common agricultural policy, and also energy and transport policies – are, in their view, the weak links that could undermine the effectiveness of the plan. Thus, the NGOs call for complementary measures.
“The EU Action Plan for nature is a positive commitment by the Juncker Commission to save threatened species and habitats in Europe. We expect this commitment to be fully reflected in the upcoming policy reforms especially in the EU budget. A substantial increase in funding is needed to implement this EU action plan and to save threatened wildlife in Europe”, said Andreas Baumüller, Head of Natural Resources at WWF European Policy Office.
“While the Commission has been right to avoid a weakening of EU nature laws and focus on better implementation, the action plan is a missed opportunity to truly grasp the nettle and make bold proposals ahead of the next EU budget debate”, in the view of Ariel Brunner, Senior Head of EU policy, BirdLife Europe.
The lack of funding was identified as one of the weakness in the fitness check on the two directives carried out by the European Commission. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)