Eurobarameter: Attitudes of Europeans towards the issue of biodiversity (Dec 2007)

The European Union (EU) is committed to the protection of "biological diversity", i.e. the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems1. The EU has been legislating on biodiversity since the 1970s and
is committed to implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity. Today, one of the four priority areas of the EU"s Sixth Environment Action Programme 2002-12 is nature and biodiversity. The 2006 Biodiversity Communication on Halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010 and beyond: Sustaining ecosystem services for human wellbeing contains an Action Plan which aims to pull together actors and resources at EU and national levels to implement the actions that will contribute towards achieving the 2010 target.