The nature directives: are they working?

Last week I attended a talk to learn more about the nature directives and why they are currently part of a huge defence by conservation organisations across the continent. The persistence of this policy is pretty vital for wildlife conservation in Europe so I thought I would share what I had learnt...

What are the Nature Directives?

The Nature directives consist of the EU Birds (2009/147/EC) and Habitats (92/43/EEC) Directives and are two vital pieces of legislation for wildlife conservation across the European Union.  The policy is built around two main areas 1) the Natura 2000 network and 2) Species protection annexes.

Natura 2000 is a network of protected sites across Europe, made up of around 26, 000 sites and covering 18% of the continent. The network is made up of Special Protected Areas (SPAs), which are designated under the birds directive, and Special Conservation Areas (SACs) which are designated under the Habitats directive.

Protection of species is done by listing species on annexes, with those on annex 1 affording the most protection. Unfortunately there are some species currently not on annex 1 that perhaps should be, and others that maybe don't need to be (but unfortunately this is a complex legislation issue that isn't easy to solve!)

Why are the directives under review?

The review process of european legislation is called REFIT - Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme - an evidence based process to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of legislation. It is however thought that President Jean Claude Juncker and vice-President Timmermans may try and take this opportunity to merge the two nature directives or weaken the laws, with negative impacts for wildlife across europe.

The REFIT process has involved sending questionnaires to EU level organisations and represtitive bodies, stakeholder organisations at Member State level, public internet consultation to the general public and a huge review of the scientific literature. 

Do they work?

An initial report from the REFIT process demonstrates that the directives have far more benefits than they do costs eg. costs of 5.8 billion EUR per year, but generated ecosystem service benefits of 200-300 billion EUR per year. The outcome of the REFIT process won't be fully realised until early 2016 - fingers crossed for the best outcome!

A couple of studies I've read about are below - though these are just a tiny fraction of those demonstrating the benefits of the nature directives.

Research by Araújo and colleagues in 2011 found that whilst european breeding birds are expected to have larger proportions of loser than winning species under future climate scenarios, the Natura 2000 network is expected to retain climate suitability better than randomly selected sites.  In 2013, research by Johnston et al. 2013 showed the benefits of SPAs for seabird and wintering waterbird populations in the UK, with most SPAs continuing to support bird numbers at the level needed to maintain their legal status under future climate scenarios, despite large levels of species turnover.

Recent research demonstrates the importance of policy, with increased annex 1 species abundance compared to non-annex species in EU countries implementing the nature directives over those that dont, and with improved population trajectories the longer the policy had been implemented (Donald et al. 2007, Sanderson et al. 2015).