What’s it about in short: BirdLife’s Ariel Brun­ner sum­ma­rizes and com­ments on the inter­rim out­comes of the fit­ness check of the EU Birds and Habi­tat Direc­tives

When was it released: Novem­ber 20, 2015

By whom: Ariel Brun­ner, BirdLife

More info: http://www.euractiv.com/sections/climate-environment/commission-barking-wrong-tree-nature-law-review-319692

see also my post on that: NATUE ALERT — last three days of the pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion as part of the ‘fit­ness check’ for EU nature leg­is­la­tion (Birds Direc­tive, Habi­tats Directive)

Short extract:

Although the evi­dence looked at in the study gives no sup­port to merg­ing and mod­ernising the direc­tives, it does clearly point to the need to strengthen their enforce­ment. The Nature Alert cam­paign we have been jointly lead­ing with other con­ser­va­tion NGOs is call­ing for the same thing; that rather than re-opening the Nature Direc­tives, the Com­mis­sion should instead be look­ing at where they’re not being prop­erly followed.

The Birds and Habi­tats Direc­tives are fit for pur­pose and there is clearly no case for ‘merg­ing and mod­ernising’ them. It’s also clear where the real prob­lems are: poor and uneven enforce­ment of the laws, a lack of fund­ing and the impact of per­verse poli­cies such as the Com­mon Agri­cul­tural Policy.