EU Green Week: Networking for nature

Paul Opdam looks at the steps needed to develop a fully cohesive Natura 2000 network.

There is a worldwide concern about the loss of biodiversity, which is mainly caused by loss, fragmentation and deterioration of habitat. Current research shows that it is urgent to implement article 10 of the EU habitat directive with priority.

It encourages member states to improve the ecological coherence of Natura 2000 through the management of landscape features. It requires that spatial strategies are implemented in regional policies and land-use planning, as well as in agricultural measures.

The urgency is caused by a combination of climate change in an increasingly fragmented landscape. Biodiversity is essential to our economic prosperity, security, health and well-being. Also, it is a key component of the capacity of ecosystems to withstand and recover from disturbances.

This capacity, called ecological resilience, is essential for ecosystems to be able to respond to climate change. This vital importance of biodiversity, along with spiritual and ethical values, is recognized in the European nature conservation policy.

The Habitat directive, including the Natura 2000 network, is the prime pillar on which this policy is built. Member states are currently implementing the Natura 2000 policy. Let us assume that soon there will be a portfolio of protected areas across Europe. If so, will the EU conclude in 2010 that the loss of biodiversity has been stopped? When are the Natura 2000 protected areas ecologically sustainable?

Only if the target habitat types and the populations of target species for which the areas are designated, are likely to persist and are capable of responding to climate change. However, this can only be the case if the protected areas constitute an ecologically cohesive network.

Considered in isolation, many Natura 2000 areas are too small to conserve viable populations of all target species in the long term. Only if sites interact in a network constellation, can such fragmented populations be persistent. Hence, long term persistence of biodiversity requires that individuals or seeds can move between sites.

The protected sites are often too far apart to allow such interactions, meaning that sites where the local population becomes extinct will not be repopulated. Moreover, current research shows that, to allow populations to adapt to shifting climate zones, more connectivity in the European landscape is required.

So how could the Natura 2000 portfolio become an ecologically coherent network? Bearing on my 15 years expertise in supporting the implementation of the Dutch national ecological network (and regional and local ecological networks) with scientific knowledge and tools, I propose three crucial steps on the way to ecological sustainability.

• Define the problem: show where in the European landscape the spatial cohesion needs to be improved, and explain why (defining the location of bottlenecks and their cause).

 

• Define the set of possible solutions. Solutions must be implemented in the regional context, which may be widely different between regions across Europe. There are many ways to improve the cohesion of the landscape (other than legal protection). So it is important to link the ecological effectiveness of potential solutions to the type of bottleneck. This leads to a set of potential strategies to develop spatial cohesion in the European ecological network.

 

• Implement spatial cohesion strategies into the spatial planning policy at the regional and local level. Design solutions that fit into the regional socio-economic context. Planning and design rules for ecological networks should be available to regional planning authorities and stakeholder groups.

Planning ecological networks is a learning process with many actors at different levels of spatial scale. The Dutch scientific and practical expertise with planning ecological networks can be of use to other countries.

For example, there is software to evaluate the sustainability of ecological networks for target species, which has been applied to screen the Dutch part of the Natura 2000 network. The input of these models varies for different parts of Europe, but the assessment software is applicable everywhere.

Also, existing Dutch design handbooks for ecological corridors and ecological networks can be adapted to be applicable elsewhere in Europe.

Making the Natura 2000 network ecologically cohesive is a tremendous task. It requires the mobilisation of all available knowledge on landscape ecology, spatial planning and organising public support. It also requires that at the EU level, regional planning and design activities are coordinated.

However, it is urgent. The first impacts of climate change are already measurable in a changing distribution of species. How many species will survive climate change? Connectivity of the European landscape makes the difference.

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