By Desmond Hinton-Beales - 20th December 2011
Biodiversity should be mainstreamed in all relevant EU and national policies if we want these polices to deliver the economic and environmental benefits they are created for
Tony Long, WWF
Environmental campaigners have criticised European ministers for attempting to weaken biodiversity protection measures in the common agricultural policy (CAP).
The criticism came following Monday's environment council in Brussels where ministers adopted decisions relating to resource efficiency and biodiversity protection.
Environmental NGOs Birdlife and WWF expressed concern over what they deemed to be a victory for the interests of the farm lobby and a weakening of biodiversity measures.
WWF European policy office director Tony Long said, "This was the key opportunity for environment ministers to send out a clear signal to their agriculture colleagues on their position on the current on-going discussion on the CAP.
"Now agriculture ministers will be on their own to decide on the level of integration of environment in the CAP."
"Biodiversity should be mainstreamed in all relevant EU and national policies if we want these polices to deliver the economic and environmental benefits they are created for."
Ariel Brunner, head of European policy at Birdlife Europe said that the lengthy negotiations and compromises were a "dangerous preview of the fate of biodiversity left completely in the hands of agriculture ministers".
European environment commissioner Janez Potocnik also expressed his disappointment, saying that the commission regretted the "deletion of all concrete indications on the required way forward to strengthen the contribution of the common agricultural policy to biodiversity objectives".
Marcin Korolec, Polish environment minister underlined the "urgent need to reverse the continuing trends of biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems in the EU to 2020".
"In order to do so, we have to undertake common actions, build partnerships, include other sectors to strengthen biodiversity protection and apply necessary measures," he said.
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