EU's Conservation Efforts Need More Strategic Investment to Meet Continental Commitments

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has made significant conservation efforts in the last two decades, guided by the Birds and Habitats Directives, currently under evaluation. Despite these efforts a large proportion of priority species are still in unfavorable condition and continue declining. For this reason, a thoughtful review of the implementation of conservation efforts in Europe is needed to identify potential causes behind this poor effectiveness. We compiled information on the distribution of all conservation funds under the LIFE-Nature, the main financial tool for conservation in Europe. We found that LIFE-Nature has not adequately covered continental conservation needs. The majority of funds have been directed toward nonthreatened species or regions of low conservation priority. Given the limited resources available, two key aspects are in urgent need for revision and improvement. First, the distribution of funds should be guided by continental and global conservation needs and planned at the EU scale. Second, new mechanisms are required to set conservation priorities in a dynamic fashion, rather than relying on fixed lists (i.e., the Directives' Annexes) that may rapidly become outdated. These improvements would require new mechanisms to set priorities and redistribution of conservation efforts, supported by adequate policy and a more effective top-down control on investment.

Gaps in ecological research on the world's largest internationally coordinated network of protected areas: A review of Natura 2000

“…Effective conservation requires involvement of scientists in implementing research results into practice (e.g. Arlettaz et al, 2010), and inadequate distribution of research focus across N2k network could be a problem for achieving the expected conservation outcomes (Hermoso et al, 2016). Based on our findings, we recommend that future N2k research priorities at the European level should give more attention to alpine, agricultural, forest and marine habitats as well as taxonomic groups such as reptiles, amphibians, lichens and fungi.…”

Mismatch between goals and the scale of actions constrains adaptive carnivore management: the case of the wolverine in Sweden

“…A common challenge for conservation of natural resources is matching the scales at which actions are planned and implemented to the scale of ecological processes or conservation issues (Cumming, Cumming & Redman, 2006;Guerrero et al, 2013;Hermoso et al, 2016). Scale mismatches can have negative consequences for species' conservation and management of focal species' impacts on ecosystems and human interests (Cumming et al, 2006;Delsink et al, 2013;Creel et al, 2015;Hermoso et al, 2016).…”

Spatial prioritisation of EU's LIFE‐Nature programme to strengthen the conservation impact of Natura 2000

“…With the exception of the LIFE programme, funds are not earmarked for conservation and then not secured for actions directly related to the implementation of Natura 2000 and conservation of biodiversity (Kettunen et al., ). For this reason, LIFE has become the main financial tool for the implementation of conservation projects in Europe (Hermoso, Clavero, Villero, & Brotons, ). Because of the poor integration of Natura 2000 in mainstream EU funding schemes, there is a risk that the available funds continue to be insufficient to attain the conservation goals pursued by the EU (European Court of Auditors, ).…”

“…Despite the financial effort being made since 1992 under the LIFE programme, Hermoso et al. () reported that there were some aspects to be improved in terms of distribution of funds to address the poor coverage of threatened priority species, and regions where they occur, and then better cover continental conservation needs. About only half of the species listed in the Directives, mostly Least Concern species according to IUCN assessments, had received funds from the LIFE‐Nature programme until 2013.…”

“…Hermoso et al. () argued that a better planning at the continental scale is needed to identify priority species and regions where to focus LIFE investment and fill the conservation gaps. This is especially important given the very limited financial resources available and the strong spatial differences in funding needs and capacity to cover them.…”