Hi Zsolt,

That is a hard issue. In Spain there is an initiative for amphibian and reptile monitoring based on transects for reptiles (each one is visited three times a year) and water bodies sampling for amphibians (sampled twice a year). It has been put forward by a scientific NGO and sampling is conducted by volunteers (http://siare.herpetologica.es/sare).

Locally, the Basque Government (7000km2) started a program based on similar protocol, but less intensive, with transects in Nat2000 site that include amphibians or reptiles in their declaration forms. The methodology provides information on presence and relative abundance of common species (including some of annex II and IV species). However, for some other more focused monitoring efforts are required. I will let you know when there is any report available.

Best wishes,

Jabi

"It has been put forward by a scientific NGO and sampling is conducted by volunteers (http://siare.herpetologica.es/sare)."

Thank you for the details and for the address!

Related to the "volunteer-issue"... well, I am not really convinced that it would be a good idea to base ONLY ON volunteering the respective type of monitoring. OK, of course, volunteers can contribute to the activity, and they are welcomed to do it, but generally is better to have an official, governmental program/project focused on the respective issues - for as long time as possible.

The problem (at least as I have seen in the answers received by various colleagues from Austria, Germany, Italy etc.) is that their governments too seems to not be very aware of the importance of carrying out the long-term monitoring of the species - although it is a clear requirement of certain articles of the Habitats Directive.

Although there are EU programs that financially support the environment-conservation related activities (the most obvious example is the LIFE+ program), the projects are usually focused on one (or few) species, and usually only on one (or few) sites - in most (if not all) cases a SCI (Site of Community Interest).

Yes, I agree on the volunteer-issue. I makes a nice complement but there should be a core of professional work in charge of the government. As for Spain, biodiversity monitoring responsibilities are transferred to regions and there is a recent law organising (a little bit) the monitoring effort. Anyway, the effort required for a sound monitoring is huge and might not rank high in some government agendas. I suppose Life could co finance the development and onset of a good monitoring program for several species and sites, but wont cover maintenance of the monitoring effort in the future.

"As for Spain, biodiversity monitoring responsibilities are transferred to regions and there is a recent law organising (a little bit) the monitoring effort."

Well, in our case the official responsibility for N2000 is of the ministry of environment, which has about 40 county-level agency (I mean those dealing with environment regulations), and other about 40 bodies that are enforcing the law (they are giving the fines in case of pollution, poaching etc.), not to mention the various types of administrations and authorities. The problem is that all these structures have no persons specialized in a taxonomic group (or, for example, in case of the agencies, may be there are 3 - 4 in the whole country among the all 1,500 employees of the county agencies...).

Not to mention that there are no special monitoring equipments at those agencies. For example, since (about) 2000 - 2001 we are carrying out the monitoring of Mustela lutreola populations from the Danube Delta. So we have the necessary types of traps, the team etc., but the environmental-protection authorities responsible for the management of this protected area have no such kind of technical means. Consequently, they can get an idea about the current status of the respective species only from the data obtained in various projects we develop. At least the persons from the authority understood the necessity to seek for the funding necessary for the monitoring activities, and in the last few years there were some joint projects (I mean, developed in co-operation with them). OK, but this is only one of the N2000 species. More than that, its populations are distributed in a relatively small area (roughly on about 4,000 sq km).

Hi

Also in Italy the responsibilities for biodiversity monitoring in relation to the Habitats Directive have been transferred to the regions. In the last year the regions have started to organize this monitoring, but everything is in its infancy.

In the Netherlands monitoring of dragonflies is organized by vlinderstichting. Here full-time professionals work in a national office and organize a large number of volunteers. The manual for dragonflies can be downloaded from http://www.vlindernet.nl/doc/dvs/pdf/VS2009-015_dragonfly_scheme_manual_NP.pdf

This manual does not focus on species of the Habitats Directive, but these are considered

I think this approach (full-time professionals - volunteers) has a number of advantages:

1. The costs are relatively low

2. Data-quality can be maintained through checks by professionals

3. Volunteers learn about the Habitats Directive, rare species and about monitoring and will communicate these issues to the general public (friends, relatives, ecc.).

4. Theoretically, all parts of the country can be reached.

"Also in Italy the responsibilities for biodiversity monitoring in relation to the Habitats Directive have been transferred to the regions"

Sönke - Yes, the same thing I found out in case of Germany. And, Jabi Zabala-Albizua wrote (some posts above) about the similar situation existing in Spain.

OK, the concrete field works can be done in separate regions without the co-ordination of a single body. But if you have more than one bioregion in the country, there has to be some central unit which makes the report for the whole bioregion. i do not really believe that the European Commission will be excessively happy to receive from a country several regional reports related to the parts of bioregions that are in the respective region (as territorial-administrative unit).

For example, in our country there are 5 European bioregions. Also we have at about 7 historical regions. Each historical region includes at least 2 European bioregions. If each historical region will complete a separate report for the European bioregions occurring in their territory, that means that in case of the N2000 species with wide distribution the European Commission could receive only for Romania not one, but 10 or more reports for the same European bioregion.

p.s. Even in our current, centralized system, we have to send to the European Commission more than 760 reports (these cover all N2000 species and all European bioregions).

So in case we would have a federal system, with 7 administrative regions, and if (let's suppose that) each region will send its reports to the CE... well, there will be probably more than 2000 reports.

Dear Zsolt,

This is a hard issues indeed. I work in the Netherlands and can share some information on this matter. Basically, as in other countries the government (ministry) is at the end responsible for the reporting about protected species to EC, but the actually monitoring is on the regional government (provinces), and is actually not supported by any structural, national program established for this purpose. Government/ministry itself does not have "knowledge in house" to actually make the reports, so it subcontracts it to a large institute = semi-governmental, semi-commercial organization (Alterra Wageningen UR - I have worked there for 2 yr) - so it is sort of out-sourcing. Well at least there are some people who know what they are talking about.

The volunteer nature organizations are collecting the data (coordinate the volunteers doing so). With high enough density of volunteer and some of them actually being professionals or on such level - it is better than anything else, at this moment at least. For amphibians, retails and fish there is an organization called RAVON . For specific info on this I suggest you contact them directly, otherwise let me know - I work in the same building and can talk to some people there. More less the same happens for birds, plants, insects etc. Some of the Dutch nature is actually land-owned and managed by NGOs (non-governmental), by different organizations as well, so government has to anyway cooperate closely with different parties - to get the information . the provinces have a largely different ideas about how to arrange nature - related issues - so the policy and a application vary from province to province. A solid monitoring in the N2k sites as you may expect is not really done or done on a selected places (selected not really with the national species monitoring in mind). There are a recent attempts to improve it: create a uniform system of monitoring - but I think they are just being applied / tested, and mainly focused on the habitats (and e.g. state and quality of habitats). a special monitoring of the "directive" species , maybe expect some, is not really done on the national level. As far as I know at least.

There are some improvements on a way - also because of a need of setting up an Natura 2000 management plans, where the monitoring has to be included as well (although the funding for it is not guaranteed).

Till now (at least previous rapports) the rapport on the species (is it art 17 reporting by the way?) was largely based on the National red-list status. This Red-lists have their own criteria (based on number of sites, size of populations etc.) and are up-dated every 10 years or so. The NGOs (so the organizations often employing professionals, but collecting data mainly by volunteers) are collecting data , estimating populations, the trends, estimating the conservation status and prepare such red-lists and updates. This is a pragmatic approach (applied since 1990-ties I think ), and it has many disadvantages (I criticized it myself when I was working there): it says little about actual state of populations, and sometimes says little about the number of individuals as well (e.g. its not sure is there is any reproduction success, or if these are actually sink-populations; in case of mobile species - indicates rather the activity density than actual number ), data are not up-to-date, some assumptions are made based on old data, it is not based on a systematic, repetitive (in the same way) performed monitoring.

The so-called "typical habitat species" - used as a indicators of habitat quality are also evaluated based on the red-list status or on the bases (in this sense more accurate) data of the volunteer-based inventories.

By the way - the state-of-art might have changed. For past two years I work for NGO (not for Alterra any more) and I am not directly involved in the work for the national government.

best regards

dr.Agata Klimkowska, the Netherlands

Dear Agata Klimkowska,

"For amphibians, retails and fish there is an organization called RAVON ;. For specific info on this I suggest you contact them directly"

Thank you for the suggestion!

Actually I have already exchanged some messages with them, mostly related to amphibians, and I got some printings on the results of the multi-annual activities in this field of interest.

p.s.

"semi-governmental, semi-commercial organization (Alterra Wageningen UR - I have worked there for 2 yr)"

I forgot to mention that our institute is currently involved in a FP7 project, in case of which, among the partners there is Alterra, too...

More details are at: http://www.reformrivers.eu/partner