As a geographer/geomorphologist with interest in nature (karst) protection, I'm dealing with one Natura 2000 site in Croatia under heavy pollution pressure. It is a sinking river in contact karst area exposed to pollution from nearby dump site and sewerage - consequences: pollution of river (destruction of water fauna), its ponor and underground stream possibly up to the distant karst springs. One of the basic problems is in bad delineation of borders not including larger catchment area (small city, suburban area with important percentage of arable land - a lot of anthropogenic pressure) but only small part of river bed. So it is completely inefficient because it does not prevent or reduce the pressure on the protected water habitat of interest. Second problem is that most of Natura 2000 sites in Croatia are poorly managed or not managed at all (no management plans), with badly determined borders/areas drawn without enough scientific fundamentals so their efficiency is questionable in many cases.
My question rised from topic asked 5 years ago: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_well_is_Natura_2000_protecting_European_biodiversity2
I'm searching for any updates on this topic - newer articles with examples. I'm interested in various habitats, not only karst and water, but all good examples of bad decisions in delineating Natura sites and repercussions to habitats, flora & fauna.
Maybe we can start some collaboration in this topic...
Thank you.
The natura_ 2000 is indeed flawed at various levels. In general, a huge burocratic and financial effort without little to prove in reaching its declared aims. The protection offered by the label natura_2000 is 'zoning` prohibiting of construction/building on site. The particular issue you raise is that the wider environment mediated through the hydrology, the atmosphere (e.g. nitrate), invasive species, as well as various legacies (e.g. absence of a complete wildlife ensemble) may prevent reaching the objective of the protection and/or restauration. The underlying reason in this and many other cases is maybe that clean, fresh water at a low price for urban, irrigation and industrial purposes is often scarcer than land (my observation: there is a lot of abandoned farmland in the karst), even in well watered places. An independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the natura_2000 and a revision based on its conclusions is overdue. Financing such effort may be hard.
I did my Bachelor thesis in a natura 2000 reserve in northern Germany, but realised, although it has been monitored, the proposed actions never were followed (after several years). The results of the thesis also show the negative influence on the monitored system (freshwater tufa springs) and were reported to the administration in charge, but without any reaction.
Thank you all for your answers. I don't have intention to 'demolish' Natura 2000 network or to criticize it without clear arguments. Besides its weaknesses I'm well aware of positive shifts comparing to pre-Natura time in Croatia. I'm just contemplating and question it's effectiveness after determining the sites (habitats) in a to narrow way what resulted in problems, e.g. ineffective protection.
I agree that, in general, it has positive role in biodiversity conservation. But during the process of determing most of the sites a major mistake was made - they were determined only by 'biological criteria', without too much respect for geodiversity and abiotic constituents of the habitat in general, and in most cases over to small area. The other problem is management that is result of lack of vision, lack of funding, lack of employees in institutions managing them, etc. One of the biggest problems of nature conservation in Croatia (including NATURA 2000 sites) is total domination of one profession in the system and to narrow view on nature that they determine only by living world, ignoring the 'physical' (non-biological) and even basic ecological characteristics of the habitat (!). Maybe this statement will made some of you angry but this is fact I experienced in many cases. It is wrong to push only one profession and do not take into account the achievements of other professions whose competences can contribute to effective and sustainable nature conservation. Changing the way of thinking and taking care of all the components of the habitat can make huge moves in the positive direction. My question was in that direction because I think that it can improve Natura 2000.
I don't count on financial support. I would like to gather experiences from EU countries and maybe make an overwiew. Because I think that there is little needed to make it a way better.
Hello Nenad, you summarise very well the value and limitations of Natura 2000 sites. I would have expected that the ecosystem concept would give a broader geobio basis for site selection, but it seems not so. In some cases the site no longer holds the target species. How can we make our suggestions known without damaging the positive advantages of the current conservation scene? Best wishes, Julian
Dear Nenad,
I would like to highlight one particular aspect you listed:
the domination of one certain aspect in the people involved, indeed can be a problem. The project I was involved in were freshwater springs, which obviously represent an interface of quite a lot domains (botany, zoology; limnofauna, terrestric fauna; chemistry, biology; biotics, abiotics; etc) and the prior work on this site has been done by a botanist. His reports completely neglected the faunistic aspects and led to suggestions which would have harmed the limnofauna and only contributed to plant conservation (none were followed by the administration anyway)
You may want to refer to my paper "EU protection is inadequate for a declining flyway population of Black-tailed Godwit - mismatch between future core breeding areas and existing Special Protection Areas" in Bird Conservation International 25 (2015), in which I demonstrate that the Dutch breeding population of the threatened Black-tailed Godwit is not adequately covered by Natura 2000-areas. I am sure there are many more examples of such poor coverage.
Hi.
In my opinion, Natura 2000 network has a great importance in the Canary Islands. There are some areas not protected by local laws in 1994 ("Red de Espacios Naturales de Canarias"), but they have been designed as Natura 2000 protected areas, so (at least for the moment) were saved from any important threat. In any case, it's true that some Natura 2000 protected sites are under different types of threats, like new tourist complexes in the surroundings, increasing human presence, alien predators of local fauna (mainly cats and rats), invasive alien plants, etc. One of the main problems in the management of such areas is the low degree of surveillance or wardening inside them, mainly in coastal sites (the situation is much better in the forests), as we have an important proportion of our territory under legal protection and is necessary to have more people working in the protected areas.
Article Assessing the role of Natura 2000 at maintaining dynamic lan...
Article EU's conservation efforts need more strategic investment to ...
You might be interested in this study as well... some exampled of poor spatial design of PAs for freshwater biodiversity in the Iberian Peninsula.
Article Effectiveness of a large reserve network in protecting fresh...
and this other one on how to tackle the problem from a systematic planning point of view:
Article Filling gaps in a large reserve network to address freshwate...
You have expressed the problem of specialist consultants who do not take into account all aspects of a potential Natura site, such as hydrology and catchment area.
I think a further problem is after a site is designated, management plans may be scanty or non-existent, or not followed. This is the case for certain SACs in Ireland. Government underfunding is often cited, but with energy and commitment, volunteer citizen scientists could be involved in many aspects of monitoring.
Not strictly the area designated for the Natura 2000 site counts, if the Habitats Directive is implemented for real. Actually all the projects/activities which occur outside the Natura 2000 site but have a significant negative impact on the site are forbidden.
According to the Jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union even a plant 600 kilometers away from the site can have an illegal impact:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62016CJ0142
I do not know the situation in Croatia, but in Romania in most cases you have to go to Court in order to convince the Environmental Authorities to do their job.
The law is not enough (Jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union is above all the national law, in Croatia as well), one have to struggle to convince the authorities to obey the law.
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