The EU Biodiversity Strategy

On 4 February 1998, the European Commission adopted a Communication on a European Biodiversity Strategy. This strategy aims to anticipate, prevent and attack the causes of significant reduction or loss of biodiversity at the source. This will help both to reverse present trends in biodiversity decline and to place species and ecosystems, including agro-ecosystems, at a satisfactory conservation status, both within and beyond the territory of the European Union (EU). With this strategy, the EU reinforces its leading role world-wide in the efforts to find solutions for biodiversity within the framework of the United Nations´ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The Strategy is organised around four strategic themes and eight policy areas. There are also four thematic Action Plans developed for each of the following themes:

• Conservation of Natural Resources
• Agriculture
• Fisheries
• Economic Cooperation

The Strategy and the Action Plans can be downloaded from the European Commission Website on Nature and Biodiversity.

In 2001, the Gothenburg European Summit agreed on the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. Within this Strategy, one of the objectives is “Protect and restore habitats and natural systems and halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010”. During 2003, the European Commission initiated a process to review the Biodiversity Strategy and to develop a delivery plan to achieve this objective (which has come to be known as “the 2010 target”). Through its Biodiversity Expert Group and various thematic working groups a review of the implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy was undertaken, shortcomings were identified and a framework for the delivery plan was discussed. The review process culminated in the stakeholders’ conference “Biodiversity and the EU – Sustainable Life, Sustaining Livelihoods”, which took place on 25-27 May 2004 in Malahide in Ireland. At this conference a framework was agreed with priority objectives and targets to achieve the 2010 target, called “Message from Malahide”. The European Commission is expected to develop a Communication in 2005 for delivering the 2010 target.

BirdLife International has been actively involved in the development of the Biodiversity Strategy, as well as in its review. We have undertaken our own review of the performance of the Strategy and its Action Plans. We believe that the overall implementation of the Strategy has been very poor indeed, with the exception of the implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives, although progress on these was also rather slow. The integration of biodiversity into other policy areas still presents the biggest challenge identified in the Strategy. We believe that to achieve the 2010 target, the EU needs a limited number of clear objectives and realistic, measurable targets, which can be easily monitored and assessed. With this in mind, we have been active in developing the document that came to known as the “Malahide Message” and we believe this should be used as a blueprint to prepare the Commission’s Communication to deliver the 2010 target through the Biodiversity Strategy.

Contact

Zoltan Waliczky
Clairie Papazoglou

Publications and links

• Halting Biodiversity Loss by 2010 - BirdLife leaflet (PDF, 400 KB)
• Malahide Message final (Word doc, 281 KB)
• IUCN Countdown 2010 web site