Parlament EU hlasoval pro biodiverzitu

4.2.2016
REGENSBURG [The EUROPARC Federation]
Autor: Bárbara País, tel: +49 941 599 3598-4

On the 2nd February, the European Parliament successfully approved the report on the mid term review of the EU Biodiversity Strategy.

The report, voted by an overwhelming majority of MEPs (592 of 689), emphasises the need of “additional, substantial and continuous efforts” to halt biodiversity loss and stresses the importance of the Birds and Habitats Directives to meet the 2020 Biodiversity targets.

The report acknowledges “habitat fragmentation, degradation and destruction” as the most important factors driving biodiversity loss, in a Europe with “around a quarter of wild species at risk of extinction”. It calls on the European Commission and Member States to give higher priority to achieving the 2020 targets and suggests that the EU should remain strongly committed to the Convention on Biological Diversity, ensuring its effective implementation.

The Habitats and Birds Directives, collectively known as Nature Directives, are recognized in the report as a “vital prerequisite for ensuring the success of the strategy“. Therefore, the Parliament calls on the Comission to improve the guidelines and facilitate the implementation of the Nature Directives across Member States.

Nature Directives are currently under a “Fitness Check” process carried out by the European Commission, which led to a massive participation of European citizens and organisations in the consultation process, finished in July 2015.

“After over half million Europeans had raised their voices for nature, I’m really pleased to see the EU Parliament expressing such clear message in favour of Biodiversity and the EU Nature Directives. It is a crucial step towards the successful implementation of the 2020 targets,and a great news for protected areas in Europe”, said Ignace Schops, EUROPARC President, adding, “On behalf of EUROPARC members, I congratulate all MEPs for their commitment to nature. The key words for the future should now be: implementation, enforcement and resources.”

The report opposes a possible revision of the Directives and stresses the need to strengthen their implementation, taking into account economic, social and cultural requirements. Moreover, it calls for an expansion of the available financing tools on biodiversity protection, and a better linkage between the existing funds.

The Report is available here (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?utm_source=ep&utm_medium=body&utm_campaign=linktrack&utm_content=wysiwyg&pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A8-2016-0003+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN). The motion was proposed by the Belgian MEP Mark Demesmaeker and voted at the Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg.

For more information, please contact:
Federico Minozzi, Manager Director of EUROPARC Federation, f.minozzi@europarc.org

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