Wild Europe online submission to EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy

Our input to the consultation exercise stressed the key importance of large natural ecosystem areas to the Strategy for adoption at the October 2020 UN Kunming conference.

This provided a brief summary, with input to follow in a Message from Bratislava containing recommendations from our conference in Slovakia on 20/21 November, and from partners in the Wild Europe network.

For climate change and biodiversity loss to be effectively tackled, and the failures of the 2010 Strategy not to be repeated, a quantum change in the capacity of the conservation sector, NGOs and EC alike, will be essential.

Wild Europe online submission on EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030

[Please note the consultation imposed a 4000 character maximum. For further information contact info@wildeurope.org]

Background

The New Green Deal is visionary. However, failure of the 2010 Biodiversity Strategy to achieve its main targets, continued loss of biodiversity, the enduring populist mandate from the 2009 EP Wilderness Resolution, the now clearly pivotal role of natural processes in addressing climate change, all point to the need for much stronger focus on protection & restoration of large non-intervention natural ecosystem areas.

The importance of these, also termed ‘wilderness’ and ‘wild areas’, lies in their environmental, economic and social attributes.

Recommendations

1) Reinforce conservation of large natural ecosystem areas

• Stronger very long-term protection of existing areas 

• Restoration of new areas, on a scale to ensure substantial mitigation of climate change 

• Linkage into wider ecological networks 

• Full implementation of nature & water legislation 

• Promoting protection in non-EU states via Neighbourhood Agreements, Accession Treaties, trade & aid policies 

• All biomes, with ecotones 

• Specific timeline targets

2) Protection of old growth/primary forest

• Strict protection of old growth/primary forest, clearly defined by criteria 

• Enforce full development & use of N2000 management plans, with divulgence of information 

• Rapid response to illegal logging, including fast track Court intervention and EC Audit enquiry; promote EUTR reforms 

• Increase the scale of old growth/primary forests 

• Clarification, to foresters, citizens & governments, of the vital role played by old growth (mature)/primary forest in mitigating climate change 

• Cessation of subsidy to timber burning bioenergy that worsens climate change

3) Supplementary actions to achieve the above goals

• Completed mapping of areas for protection & restoration; support for updates, monitoring & intervention [Early Warning System] 

• Set-aside of state forest agency areas where logging is uneconomic, or if contain old growth/primary forests 

• Adequate compensation for private sector landholders to protect forest & other habitat 

• Promoting the value of large natural ecosystems to governments, citizens & sector representatives

4) Appropriate policy and structures

Improve inter DG coordination, avoiding contradictory projects

• Capacity building in the conservation sector for key specialisms: economic valuation, enterprise management, finance, sociological input 

• Promote legal structures enabling very long-term protection in private ownership: freehold/lease arrangements, easements, trusts 

• Stage 2 of the Wilderness Register: include non EU countries; socio-economic & enterprise capacity 

• Stage 2 of the Natura 2000 Management Guidelines for wilderness & wild areas: include good practice exchange with Emerald & UNESCO networks; socio-economic & enterprise capacity 

• Closer coordination between EC, UNESCO and Bern Convention (if this remains an operating entity)

5) Greatly increased funding in New Green Deal

• Major reallocation of CAP budget to ecosystem service provision 

• Include 3% supplement to Ecological Focus Areas, tradable at regional level, creating new natural ecosystem areas 

• Double the LIFE budget 

• 50% of EIB budget and 45% of the new NDICI (Neighbourhood, Development, International Cooperation Instrument) budget, Europe component, to address climate change with ecosystem restoration as a key element 

• Promote iconic regional scale nature-based initiatives addressing climate change – eg Clima Carpathia (FCC) 

• Facilitate funding mechanisms for the PES agenda: eg promote good practice for projects implementing forest & peatland carbon codes; support the Market Stability Reserve if Brexit dilutes carbon value 

• Promote use of innovative funding: eg Insurance Tax Premium supplements for flood mitigating restoration projects (river basin scale); EIB long-term soft loan capacity; mixed source Green Bonds 

• Promote the social benefit and deprivation agendas to key budget holders

20 January 2020