BirdLife has today launched inventories of the most important sites for wild birds in seven of the new Member States of the European Union. The seven new IBA directories are for Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland and Slovakia.

Altogether 430 Important Bird Areas (IBAs) have been identified in the seven countries. They cover 15% of their land surface and an additional 2 million ha of marine areas.

One year on from the historical date of their accession to the EU, protection levels of key sites for wild birds under EU legislation is better in the majority of the ten new EU Member States, than in the fifteen original members. However, Cyprus, Malta and Poland have so far failed to designate all their IBAs as Special Protection Areas under the EU’s Birds Directive – and even protected sites there face tough challenges from harmful developments.

"There are clear signs that EU funds have opened up the floodgates to rapid and unsustainable economic development in the new Member States. The sites listed in the new publications will need all the protection they can get in future." —Zoltan Waliczky, European Advocacy Manager, The RSPB

The IBAs identified cover a diverse range of habitats such as lowland and mountain forests, wetlands, meadows and bogs – landscapes that are rapidly disappearing from the rest of Europe. These sites host the majority of the EU population of globally threatened species such as Aquatic Warblers, Great Snipes and Spotted Eagles, as well as healthy populations of other more widespread species such as White and Black Storks, Common Cranes, and several woodpeckers and owls.

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