SHORT INFO: The verdict is in: Europe’s nature laws are fit for purpose

owlWhat’s it about in short: BirdLife sum­ma­rizes some of the first results of the “fit­ness check” of the EU birds and habi­tats direc­tive

When was it released: Novem­ber 12, 2015

By whom: Fin­lay Dun­can, BirdLife

More info: http://www.birdlife.org/africa/news/extractives-industries-africa-blessing-or-curse

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:

The first find­ings are out from the Euro­pean Commission’s review of key Euro­pean nature laws — and it says they deliver far more ben­e­fits than they cost.

A study car­ried out by inter­na­tional experts for the Com­mis­sion has pub­lished its ini­tial find­ings of the Fit­ness Check, or ‘REFIT’, process on the Birds and Habi­tats Direc­tives.

It’s feared the laws, also known as the Nature Direc­tives, could be re-opened, merged or weak­ened as part of Pres­i­dent Jean Claude Juncker and vice-President Tim­mer­mans’ drive for ‘bet­ter regulation’.

But the eval­u­a­tion study, com­piled by a panel of tech­ni­cal experts, has found no rea­son for merg­ing the direc­tives and says they are also coher­ent with other EU poli­cies and laws.

Fur­ther, it spells out the huge ben­e­fits pro­vided by the laws when com­pared with how much they cost. The Natura 2000 net­work of pro­tected areas, which the laws are respon­si­ble for, costs an esti­mated 5.8 bil­lion EUR per year, but gen­er­ates ben­e­fits in ecosys­tem ser­vices run­ning to 200–300 bil­lion EUR per year and a fur­ther 50–85 bil­lion EUR per year for local economies. Over­all, the direc­tives make pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and allow eco­nomic devel­op­ment which is com­pat­i­ble with main­tain­ing biodiversity.

Ariel Brun­ner, BirdLife Europe Senior Head of Pol­icy, said: “The Fit­ness Check evi­dence is crys­tal clear — the Birds and Habi­tat Direc­tives are fit for pur­pose and there is no case for ‘merg­ing and mod­ernising’ them.

“The evi­dence also clearly shows where the real prob­lems lie: poor and uneven enforce­ment, lack of fund­ing and the impact of per­verse poli­cies such as the CAP.”

While the evi­dence gives no sup­port what­so­ever for a need to “merge and mod­ernise” the direc­tives, it high­lights how enforce­ment must be strength­ened and for EU poli­cies that are still dri­ving bio­di­ver­sity loss to be dealt with.

Today’s pub­li­ca­tions come just a week ahead of a cru­cial event on the Fit­ness Check process. Con­ser­va­tion­ists, politi­cians and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the EU insti­tu­tions will come together on Fri­day 20th Novem­ber for a con­fer­ence on the Nature Direc­tives in Brus­sels, hosted by EU Envi­ron­ment Com­mis­sioner, Kar­menu Vella.

The ‘Emerg­ing Find­ings’ report has been pre­pared by a con­sor­tium led by Milieu Ltd,  and also com­prised of the Insti­tute for Euro­pean Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­icy (IEЕР), ICF  Inter­na­tional and Ecosys­tems Ltd. for the Euro­pean Commission’s Direc­torate Gen­eral Envi­ron­ment. It is avail­able to view here.

A sep­a­rate report on the pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the Nature Direc­tives is avail­able to view here.


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