Over the past 40 years the EU has set up a relatively comprehensive and dense body of environmental legislation which, although far from perfect, is certainly a success story. Times are changing and increasing complexity of inter-linkages between policies on climate change, biodiversity and natural resources, coupled with financial and political volatility mean EU policy is likely to move in a new direction in the coming decade. That is the suggestion made by the recent report produced by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Environment Group (APPEG). Here are some of the key areas of EU environmental policy that the IEEP has identified as being high on the agenda over the next few years.

Climate Change and Energy

Despite being among some of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the world, EU member states are also among the most active in seeking to address the issue. The Kyoto Protocol commits the EU-15 to reducing average GHG emissions by 8 per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. In 2009 the EU implemented the 20-20-20 target, which aims to reduce GHG emission by 20 per cent, increase the share of renewable energy by 20 per cent and reduce energy consumption by 20 per cent, all by the year 2020. Progress towards these targets is mixed with the steady rise in the share of renewable energy sources in stark contrast to the energy saving estimates. A number of studies have demonstrated that more ambitious climate mitigation polices are needed in Europe which could modernise the EU economy and infrastructure, create jobs and enhance competitiveness in fast growing global markets for low-carbon goods and services.

Transport

Emissions from transport are a major source of the EU’s GHG emissions, in 2010 it accounted for more than a fifth of GHG emissions from the EU. Increasing demand has offset potential gains from improvements in the energy efficiency of new vehicles. Further impacts of transport include problems with poor air quality, noise and transport infrastructure also puts huge pressure on Europe’s ecosystems and biodiversity. Currently there is a major effort to promote the use of biofuels and accelerate the process of electrifying road vehicles, however, many challenges exist in ensuring that these alternative fuels and energy sources are sustainable and are in fact low carbon.

Water

The EU environmental policies regarding water pollution have improved freshwater quality for many of its member states, including the UK. There are, however, growing problems in relation to water quantity, in particular in the south of Europe. EU water policy provides a comprehensive legislative framework that aims to address issues related to water quality as well as water demand and availability. 2012 will be an important year for EU water policy with the current “fitness-check” being undertaken by the Commission.

Biodiversity

Despite the establishment of a European network of protected areas (Natura 2000) and wide ranging regulatory framework, biodiversity continues to decline. 2010 targets of halting biodiversity loss within the EU were not met, mainly due to continuing increases in key pressures such as intensification of agriculture and habitat fragmentation. Over the last few years there has been increasing recognition of the economic value of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the policy process. A new EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 was produced in 2011 which sets out six main targets relating to: full implementation of the birds and habitats Directives, maintaining and restoring ecosystems and their services, increasing the contribution of agriculture and forestry to maintaining and enhancing biodiversity, ensuring the sustainable use of fisheries resources, combating invasive alien species and helping to avert global biodiversity loss.

Earlier today the All Party Parliamentary Environment Group (APPEG) launched a report, produced by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), entitled “The future for EU Environmental Policy: Challenges and Opportunities”.

The independent report considers environmental challenges facing the EU and the priorities for future development of EU environmental policy.

A call for specific biodiversity goals to be integrated into the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was abandoned at the insistence of Germany during a meeting of environment ministers in Brussels today (19 December).

In its proposal for a biodiversity strategy to 2020, the European Commission had listed several types of biodiversity concerns that should be dealt with under the CAP. But several member states objected to this, saying it prejudged the outcome of ongoing talks among agriculture ministers to reform the CAP.

The Polish presidency of the Council of Ministers put forward a proposal changing the list to theoretical “examples,” but this was still not acceptable to Germany. After several hours of discussion, Germany succeeded in having the entire paragraph on biodiversity objectives for the CAP deleted in the final version approved by ministers. Germany’s environment ministry was under strict orders from its agriculture ministry not to accept any list of possible biodiversity requirements for CAP, according to a source involved in the discussions.

Campaign group BirdLife Europe said the deletion was symptomatic of an overall fear by environment ministers of clashing with ongoing discussions in other Council meetings. The UK was able to water down language on funding for the environmental funding programme Life, saying it prejudges ongoing discussions over the multiannual financial framework. Language on fisheries was also made vaguer.

Ariel Brunner, head of European policy at BirdLife, said the decision was a worrying sign that environmental goals would not be taken seriously in upcoming discussions on agriculture, fisheries and budget reform. “Looking at environment ministers compromising for hours on the protection of what should be the core of their political mandate – biodiversity – is a dangerous preview of the fate of biodiversity left completely in the hands of agriculture ministers,” she said.

Janez Potočnik, the European commissioner for the environment, issued a statement condemning the deletion of the list, adding that the Commission would continue to push for biodiversity objectives to be made part of the CAP during the reform discussions.

Original text from: http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2011/december/reference-to-cap-in-biodiversity-conclusions-deleted-/73015.aspx

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced a review of the implementation of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives in the UK. Following the announcement of the review by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement to the House of Commons, Defra have released details of the scope of the consultation, which will publish conclusions by the date of the 2012 budget, in March.

The purpose of the review is to assess: ‘the Habitats and Wild Bird Directives as currently implemented in England by the Habitats Regulations and Offshore Marine Conservation Regulations, focussing in particular on those obligations that affect the authorisation process for proposed development, with a view to reducing the burdens on businesses while maintaining the integrity of the purpose of the directives.’

The Habitats and Birds Directives are therefore presented as barriers to economic growth. Two of the areas of focus for the review include:
- Whether the approach taken by competent authorities is appropriate, particularly in relation to risk, or whether the requirements of the legislation are applied too or insufficiently rigorously; and whether competent authorities and statutory conservation advisers could explore more creative solutions; and
- Whether NE and JNCC’s approach to the provision of advice to competent authorities is appropriate, or takes an excessively or insufficiently precautionary approach.

The Government intends to examine other European Member States for examples of best practice in implementing the Directives and where the UK could learn from others’ experience in terms of applying the Directives whilst avoiding excessive burdens to business.

Wildlife and Countryside Link, of which the BES is a member, are in the process of establishing a taskforce to feed into the Review, with the aim of reporting by January 2012.

Intensive farming methods have simplified landscapes across Europe, leading to a loss of biodiversity. A recent study has investigated the effects of intensive farming on plants, beetles and birds in Western European regions and found that plants and birds are particularly affected.

In recent decades, changes in agricultural practices have transformed the structure of landscapes across Europe, particularly in the West. Intensification of agriculture has simplified a previously complex landscape, which has been accompanied by a loss of biodiversity in European farmlands. Agricultural intensification (AI) affects biodiversity at all levels of the landscape, from field and farm levels, through to the regional scale.

In this study, the diversity of plants, ground beetles (carabids) and breeding birds was measured at local and regional levels in cereal crop fields in eight European countries: Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden. The total diversity of species at field, farm and regional scales was estimated from the average diversity within communities and from the average diversity between different communities at all three scales.

AI was estimated from fertiliser and pesticide inputs, tillage operations and mechanical weed control used by farmers in the study areas. Based on this information, AI was divided into low, medium and high levels in each region and the impact of AI on biodiversity in the landscape was assessed.

For all regions studied at all three scales (field, farm and regional), AI was linked to reduced diversity of plants and birds, but not ground beetles. This suggests the impact of AI on biodiversity is not uniform and some groups of species are more affected than others. In addition, how mobile the different groups of species are, plays an important role in the pattern of diversity found across the landscape.

• High levels of AI affected plants at all scales: plants are not mobile and the more simplified the landscape became (with associated loss of diverse habitats), the greater the loss of plant diversity.
• High levels of AI especially affected birds at the farm and region scale. However, with low levels of AI, the diversity of birds was increased. Less intensive agricultural management of fields (e.g. less weed control), maintaining a diversity of field margins (such as hedgerows and woodland) and providing semi-natural habitats in arable landscapes are all important for bird diversity.
• Ground beetle diversity found within fields probably benefitted from having various types of field margins and near-by semi-natural areas, which would supply habitats for new recruits of beetles to the fields.

Although the level of intensive agriculture practised locally by farmers affected species diversity at the field scale, biodiversity (especially of birds and ground beetles) found among different communities at the farm scale was more important in terms of regional biodiversity. Therefore, different local farming practices significantly affect the pattern of the landscape structure and the biodiversity found in agricultural landscapes.

Understanding the detailed impacts of AI on different groups of species at field, farm and regional scales is important for the development of effective agri-environmental schemes. Resources can be targeted at areas where high levels of diversity occur and would be affected by a further simplification of the landscape structure through high intensity farming methods.

Source: Flohre, A., Fischer, C., Aavik, T. et al. (2011) Agricultural intensification and biodiversity partitioning in European landscapes comparing plants, carabids, and birds. Ecological Applications. 21: 1772-1781.

[Taken from Science for Environment Policy]

On 12th October, the European Commission has presented a draft reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the period after 2013. This draft aims to strengthen the competitiveness, sustainability and permanence of agriculture throughout the EU in order to secure for European citizens a healthy and high-quality source of food, preserve the environment and develop rural areas.

‘The European Commission is proposing a new partnership between Europe and its farmers in order to meet the challenges of food security, sustainable use of natural resources and growth. The next decades will be crucial for laying the foundations of a strong agricultural sector that can cope with climate change and international competition while meeting the expectations of the citizen. Europe needs its farmers. Farmers need Europe’s support. The Common Agricultural Policy is what feeds us, it’s the future of more than half of our territory’, said Dacian Cioloş, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development.

The reformed CAP will make it possible to promote innovation, strengthen both the economic and ecological competitiveness of the agricultural sector, combat climate change, and sustain employment and growth. It will thus make a decisive contribution to the Europe 2020 strategy.

[Credit: Society of Biology 'Science Policy News']

Last week the European Commission announced their plans for the new EU budget. The new budget, known as the Multi Annual Financial Framework (MFF) sets how much will be spent over the years 2014 to 2020, and how this money will be allocated.

Overall few changes have been made to the size of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget however there have been significant changes in the way in which this money will be allocated. Of the overall €372 billion budget around two thirds will be allocated to Pillar 1 which makes direct payments to farmers. 30% of direct payments from the CAP will be used to encourage environmentally sound practices, as part of a greening of the CAP. €4.5 billion will be spent on research into food security.

The Pillar 2 budget, which is used to fund agri-environment schemes, will be cut over the period by about 7%, leading some organisations such as WWF to doubt the ability of the new budget to deliver the ambitious environmental goals set out in Europe 2020. Sacrifices in this part of the budget have been made to avoid cutting direct payments to farmers. Another key concern is the new freedom that member states will have to move funding around between pillars 1 and 2 which many anticipate will further reduce the amount spent on environmental projects.

The budget for LIFE+, the EU scheme to fund nature and biodiversity projects has only been increased by a small fraction leading many organisations to doubt the ability of the new budget to maintain the Natura 2000 network of protected areas. National financing plans for Natura 2000 may be the only hope to protect our natural capital

The external budget, which funds initiatives such as the Global Climate and Biodiversity Fund and the European Development Fund, has been increased but it remains unclear how much funding will go specifically to projects to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services. Whether this money will be used in a way that contributes towards the millennium development goals whilst simultaneously delivering solutions for biodiversity remains to be seen, although the budget does state that the European Parliament are committed to contributing financially to help meet commitments on biodiversity and climate change.

Funding for research will focus on projects that cannot be achieved by countries acting alone. The budget states that Horizon 2020, the new framework for research funding, will focus on key sectoral policy priorities such as climate change, food security and unsustainable resource use.

Following the results of the consultation on the Green Paper on a Common Strategic Framework for future EU Research and Innovation Funding it has become clear that many researchers in ecology have been left feeling that biodiversity research is falling off the radar.

The Green Paper, published in February this year was designed to spark debate about research funding to inform the Horizon 2020 strategy which will replace the Framework Programme for research, the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology after the next EU budget in 2013.
Evidence was gathered in five main areas:
1. Working together to deliver on Europe 2020
2. Tackling societal challenges
3. Strengthening competitiveness
4. Strengthening Europe’s science base and the European Research Area
5. Public debate and further steps

Despite biodiversity loss being a major societal challenge it was not mentioned at all in the Green Paper, and there was no mention of funding research to help meet the 2020 biodiversity targets. This was noted by a variety of organisations including the French government, Defra, NERC and WWF Europe. Many were dismayed that biodiversity research had been omitted when biodiversity loss is such a pressing issue with a great deal of public interest.

Several organisations emphasised the need for biodiversity and ecosystem related research to be one of the main research priorities for the EU, as large scale projects with international collaboration are needed. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures noted that long term investment by the EU is needed for novel technologies (such as remote sensing) to monitor biodiversity, as well as investment in technology to utilise the massive quantities of environmental data that are accumulating.

Despite the omission of biodiversity loss from the Green Paper there were some indications in the European Commission’s initial analysis that they intend to develop an international collaboration strategy which will be valuable for the field of biodiversity research.

Concerns that biodiversity is falling off the radar have been reflected in the recent failure of EU member states to endorse the 20 concrete measures proposed by the EU executive to implement the six headline targets that will allow the 2020 biodiversity target to be achieved. Some countries including Denmark and Italy have refused to endorse the six headline targets because of the perceived high financial cost of protecting biodiversity. Many of the member states said they require more time to consider the measures and emphasised the need to learn from the mistakes of the 2010 targets, which failed mainly because the EU never really agreed on how best to achieve the goals and how to finance them.

Public interest in biodiversity issues may also be declining. Googletrends has shown that the number of times the word biodiversity has been searched has declined from 2004 to the present day, whilst searches for ecosystem services continue to increase.

Whether biodiversity research gets the funding it needs from the European Commission in Horizon 2020 remains to be seen.

Sustainable eel fishing may start to increase in the European Union following the development of a new labelling scheme by the Sustainable Eel Group. The group, whose members include scientists, NGOs and policymakers, have developed a new standard (the Sustainable Eel Standard) to identify and promote best practice in the eel fishing industry. The development of the new standard is part of a move in the EU to put pressure on caterers and retailers to purchase eel only when they can be certain that it has been sustainably caught.

Eel populations have declined dramatically since monitoring began. A variety of factors have contributed to this decline including habitat destruction, pollution of waterways, disease, blocking of migratory pathways, and the complexity of the European eel lifecycle. These problems led to the eel being listed as endangered in 2008, after numbers had declined by as much as 90%. The new standard will start to tackle these problems by creating wetland habitats, monitoring water quality, and making alterations to the blocks in migratory pathways to allow eels to pass.

The new standard outlines key actions that the fishery must undertake in order to obtain a green score. These include:
• To achieve 40% escapement of eels, and minimise mortality during fishing
• To be licensed and provide accurate logbook data
• To use only legal gear
• To cause only negligible impacts on bycatch species or rare and protected species
• To cause on negligible impacts on habitats
• To active contribute in research and monitoring
• To develop and implement an eel management plan for restocking, and monitor the success of restocking
The report also contains recommendations for reducing the environmental and ecological impact of cultured eel and recommendations for animal welfare. Although these recommendations will ensure progression towards sustainability in the eel fishing industry the report also recognises that the fishery can not yet be called sustainable, as recovery of the stocks has not been sufficient.

The Sustainable Eel group is working with the Environment Agency to ensure that these recommendations are implemented in line with an EU Eel Management Plan

The European commission yesterday proposed a new strategy to achieve the 2020 biodiversity targets by incorporating the valuation of natural capital. The new strategy, which is based on a report by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), states that the economic value of ecosystems in Europe must be factored into decision making at all levels.

This announcement follows the failure of the European Union to achieve the 2010 biodiversity target to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity within Europe. It has become clear that current legislation is ineffective with only 11% of protected ecosystems in a favourable status despite the wide range of efforts deployed to protect nature, and the establishment of an extensive network of protected areas (Natura 2000). The new strategy blames, among other causes, lack of consideration for the economic value of biodiversity for the failure to meet past targets.

TEEB has estimated that the economic cost of loosing biodiversity dwarfs the cost of adequate protection. For example over fishing costs the fisheries industry over $50 billion annually. Janez Potočnik the EU environment commissioner stated that “It is a much smarter economic investment to protect the diversity of life and healthy ecosystems than face tragedy once diversity has been lost,”

The 2020 target to halt the loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services has been divided into six main goals covering the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services, improving the contribution of agriculture forestry and fisheries to conservation, and addressing the worldwide biodiversity crisis.

Europe plans to achieve these goals by:
• Building on the biodiversity knowledge base by identifying research gaps, contributing to the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and establishing a monitoring and review procedure for the strategy.
• Setting up market based mechanisms to attract funding for the protection of ecosystem services, and to encourage projects that deliver multiple benefits.
• Establish a coherent message about biodiversity in the common agricultural policy, fisheries policy and water framework directive.
• Interacting with a wide variety of stakeholders through the EU business and biodiversity platform to help share successful initiatives and best practice.
• Engaging civil society in the hope they will become actively involved in achieving the targets.

TEEB estimates that this strategy could create new jobs and business opportunities worth 2 to 6 trillion dollars by 2050.

The full communication can be seen here.