EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has confirmed that the two EU Directives – for the birds and the habitats will stay unchanged, and thus the proposal for their amendment and reduction of their nature protection weight has been turned down. The most significant tools of Europe for nature protection have been in danger for the last couple of years, and their future has been insecure. Today President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU Commission call for the better execution and application of the two directives.
This is an achievement that matches a world record for the half a million people who in the last month appealed to the EU Commission to preserve and apply these tools in their present form, and not to accept the proposed revision. This success comes as a result of the campaign “Nature in danger”, led across Europe, in which 10,000 Bulgarians took part as well.
The two directives are EU’s tool for protection of nature in the Old World, while protecting more than 1000 endangered with extinction species and nearly one million square kilometers of natural habitats in Europe, mainly through Nature 2000 network for nature protection. Besides regular people, the directives are very popular with and vehemently defended by academics, business, EU Parliament and national governments.
Nature protection non-governmental organisations welcome EU Commission’s decision, but also stress that now it is the hard part with turning this decision into a real win for nature. They call for stricter observance of the two directives and for measures for dealing with the biggest sectors leading to loss of nature, and namely intensive agriculture, to be introduced.
Robbie Blake from Friends of the Earth Europe says:
“Nature has eluded the bullet today. However, we all need nature in order to lead a healthy and worthy life, and that is why the decision to keep the most significant and popular Europe directives unchanged is so important. We should not forget that these basic for nature protection documents should never be subject to doubt. It would be a self-defeat for anyone looking to devalue and deprive of force legislature protecting nature.”
Ariel Brunner, Head of EU Policy, BirdLife Europe, says:
“EU Commission’s decision not to amend the directives protecting Europe’s nature shows that the voice of half a million people calling for their preserving has been heard well and clearly enough. Nature is our society’s greatest valuable, and is needed for our survival. This is a win for the idea of European cooperation, as well as for nature which knows no borders.”
Head of Natural Resources at WWF European Policy Office Andreas Baumuller says:
“Today we are unanimous that birds and habitats directives are “worth their goal”, and namely to protect our nature and our health. Now President Jean-Claude Juncker and the Commission he heads have to open a new chapter and to create a strong plan for action for dealing with the insufficient application of the two directives and to find effective decisions to counter the unsustainable development. Even the best practice is not worth even the paper it is written on, if it is not executed effectively!”
Policy Director at European Environmental Bureau Pieter de Pous says:
“Not only nature protection activities don’t receive enough funding for their execution, but EU’s Common Agricultural Policy continues to deteriorate our natural environment by subsidizing the biggest land owners, who are the biggest polluters, and thus increases the expense for protecting the habitats and biodiversity. The longer the reform of CAP is delayed, the harder and costlier it will be nature loss to be stopped. EU Commission has to give a strong push to CAP’s reform in order to guarantee that it supports and assists only those agriculture producers who apply practices sparing wild nature in Europe, as well as that it supports those natural resources agriculture is so much in dependence of, and namely water and soil. “
Now non-governmental organisations expect by the spring of 2017 EU Commissioner Vella to propose actions in the form of an action plan, so that EU’s goal for stopping biodiversity loss by 2020 can be achieved.
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The Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive contribute to the achievement of the priority goal of the EU of stopping the loss of and restoring the biodiversity by 2020. They are the basis of the biggest protected areas network in the world – Natura 2000, which covers 18% of the territory of the EU (over 1 million sq.km) and around 6% of the water area of Europe.
The two Directives provide protection for the endangered habitats and for more than 1000 rare and vulnerable species, among which the eastern imperial eagle, the lynx, the Dalmatian pelican. More than 1 billion people annually visit Natura 2000 protected areas, like Danube delta, Carpathian Mountains, Wadden Sea, supporting between 4.5 and 8 million jobs.
A record number – 520,325 people took part in the consultations with the EU Commission in discussions on the Directives in 2015, with 94% of the participants calling for the Directives to be preserved and applied better, thus contributing towards EC taking a greater responsibility now.
“Nature in danger!” or #NatureAlert is the biggest public campaign in the history of the EU, which united more than 520,000 Europeans in support of the birds and habitats directives and for their better application. More about the campaign can be found at http://www.naturealert.eu
The Nature in Danger campaign comes as a response to EC’s intention to revise the Birds and the Habitats Directives. This transpired from the instructions from EC’s President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU Commissioner for the Environment Vella in 2014: “To conduct a detailed analysis of the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive, and to assess the possibility for merging the two directives in a more modern piece of legislation,” as a part of an initiative named “Better Regulation”. An unprecedented coalition of more than 200 non-governmental environmental organisations from all EU Member States represented the clear message from citizens that the directives have to be preserved and to be better applied, and not – “modernized”. Thus European citizens saved nature protection in Europe. We are grateful to them all.
In December 2015, the Council on the Environment recognized the significance of full application of these laws of prime importance in order to “preserve legal safety for all stakeholders”.
In February 2016, with an overwhelming majority, the EU Parliament voted against “possible amendment of nature protection directives”.
Three hundred and twelve small and middle-sized enterprises requested the Commission to preserve stable, effective and predictable nature protection legislation.
Europeans saved their nature protection laws with a large-scale campaign
