Will Transport Developments in EU accession Countries Destroy one in five Important Bird Areas?

Ten Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries are poised to join the European Union (EU), with all the benefits – and obligations – that membership entails. One obligation is to protect the best-preserved and most important sites for wild birds and other wildlife within a network of protected areas called Natura 2000. Conversely, they also need to upgrade their transport infrastructure network – roads, railways and waterways – to help achieve universal mobility and accessibility. Can the needs of the two networks be incorporated in an enlarged Europe?

BirdLife Polish IBAs potentially affected by transport development Zoom In

BirdLife's investigations into the Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment (TINA) proposals revealed that 85 Important Bird Areas (IBAs) – 21% of all the IBAs assessed – could be affected. Roads threaten 52, and developing waterways – supposedly a more environmentally sustainable mode of transport – could affect as many as 34 IBAs. While not official EU policy, TINA guides both national transport policy developments and inward investments into the CEE from the EU, international funding institutions and private investors.

IBAs meet the criteria for protection under the Natura 2000 network, and BirdLife's findings highlight the conflict between EU environmental legislation and EU funding for transport infrastructure development.

The 85 IBAs hold internationally important populations of 128 bird species, including 58 species listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive as deserving of special conservation measures. More than two-thirds of the accession countries' population of three Globally Threatened Birds – Dalmatian Pelican Pelecanus crispus, Red-breasted Goose Branta ruficollis, Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola – and two near-threatened species – Pygmy Cormorant Phalacrocorax pygmeus and Great Snipe Gallinago media – occur at these sites.

Existing conflicts between IBAs and TINA developments – e.g. the Poodri floodplains in the Czech Republic, the Szatmár-Bereg in eastern Hungary, and the Kresna Gorge in southern Bulgaria – serve as salient warnings against hasty development that could cause irreversible damage to sites that are important for birds and other biodiversity.

The process of planning and funding the TINA network is non-transparent and non-consultative, making it especially hard for NGOs to make their opinions heard by decision-makers. BirdLife asks EU and accession country officials and donor organisations to urgently address key issues, including a Strategic Environmental Assessment of the whole TINA network, project-level Environmental Impact Assessments to identify alternatives for the sites identified in the report; stopping all EU funding that could destroy IBAs; opening up the TINA process to public scrutiny, and additional studies to assess the full ecological impact of TINA.