Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the "Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament Biodiversity action plans in the areas of conservation of natural resources, agriculture, fisheries, and economic and development cooperation"
Date: 2001-11-15
Institutions: European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: agricultural policy, development aid, economic cooperation, fisheries policy, protection of animal life, protection of plant life

3.5.2002

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 107/73

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the ‘Communication from the Commission to the
Council and the European Parliament “Biodiversity action plans in the areas of conservation of
natural resources, agriculture, fisheries, and economic and development cooperation”’

(2002/C 107/22)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament
on Biodiversity Action Plans in the areas of Conservation of Natural Resources, Agriculture, Fisheries and
Economic and Development Cooperation (COM(2001) 162 final);

having regard to the decision of its Bureau of 12 June 2001 under the fifth paragraph of Article 265 of
the Treaty establishing the European Community to draw up an opinion on the Communication from
the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on Biodiversity Action Plans in the areas of
Conservation of Natural Resources, Agriculture, Fisheries and Economic and Development Cooperation
and to instruct Commission 4 for Spatial Planning, Urban Issues, Energy and Environment to draw up
the relevant opinion;

having regard to the report of the European Environment Agency on the Environment in the European
Union at the turn of the century;

having regard to the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament
on a European Community biodiversity strategy (COM(98) 42 final);

having regard to the decision of the Council of 25 October 1993 concerning the conclusion of the
Convention on Biological Diversity (1);

having regard to the UN/ECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to
Justice in Environmental Matters;

having regard to the draft opinion (CdR 201/2001 rev.) adopted by Commission 4 on 8 October 2001
for which the rapporteur was Mr Torchio (Mayor of Spineda, I-PPE),

adopted unanimously the following opinion at its 41st plenary session of 14 and 15 November 2001
(session of 15 November).

1.

The Committee of the Regions’ position

1.1.
On 27 March 2001 the European Commission for-
warded a Communication on Biodiversity Action Plans in the
areas of Conservation of Natural Resources, Agriculture,
Fisheries and Economic and Development Cooperation to the
Council and the European Parliament. The initiative originated
in a series of measures to stem the worrying reduction and
loss of biodiversity in Europe and worldwide: there has been
no let up in the rate of reduction and loss of entire species,
with their habitats, ecosystems and genes at European or world
level.

The Committee of

the Regions shares the Com-
1.2.
mission’s concern at data revealing average losses in Europe of
more than a third of butterflies and bird species and a quarter
of species of certain groups of plants; in some Member States
more than two-thirds of existing habitat types are endangered,
with a reduction in European wetlands of 60 % over recent
decades; nearly a hundred domestic animal breeds have been
lost, and 30 % of the surviving breeds are at risk of extinction.

(1) OJ L 309, 13.12.1993.

The picture which emerges from FAO data is even more
alarming, with over 11 000 plant and animal species in danger
of immediate extinction as a result of human activity. The
international trade in wildlife is a global threat to some
30 000 species, and incalculable losses are caused by the
annual destruction of around 600 000 km2 of tropical forests
in the Amazon.

The Committee of

the Regions considers that

1.3.
if
agriculture, fisheries and many industrial processes including
the production of medicines are to be viable in the long term,
emphasis must be placed on the ethical responsibility to
preserve the biodiversity on which many communities depend
and which, if lost, reduced or subjected to excessive pressure,
leads to loss of economic opportunity.

The Committee of

1.4.
the Regions is convinced that
protecting biodiversity means effectively protecting the quality
of life, primarily at local level. Local and regional authorities
are under strong pressure from public opinion, which is
increasingly vocal in its concerns regarding shrinking biodiv-
ersity. Many people now measure quality of life not only in
terms of economic and material well-being, but increasingly
in terms of upholding a certain level of biological and
environmental standards. These same standards are the focus
of strong demands from civil society, as a result of burgeoning

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Official Journal of the European Communities

3.5.2002

environmental and animal-rights movements. The holding of
summits and meetings of world leaders in European cities is,
in itself, having a growing political impact on governments
and public order, as a result of the increasingly determined
challenge to existing policies and the process of globalisation.

1.5. While the concern to safeguard biodiversity is becom-
ing ever more widespread, ecological and environmental
movements are focusing their most vigorous campaigns on
genetic manipulation or modification of certain crops.

forms of

1.6.
The Committee of the Regions agrees on the need to
pursue a more vigorous policy breaking the bounds of
land conservation, with the aim of
traditional
implementing conservation measures far beyond the current
10-20 % of the world’s surface area that could be designated
as protected areas. To safeguard diversity today, action is
needed to combat endocrine-disrupting and persistent organic
pollutants, the proliferation of alien invasive species, and to
assess the effects of introducing specific GMOs.

Action to highlight and promote the history and identity of
communities living in rural areas and semi-natural rural agro-
ecosystems — which act as effective natural reservoirs of
biodiversity — could help to weave a new, integrated territorial
fabric as part of a vision of tomorrow’s Europe which is not
geared exclusively to urban or industrial centres.

The outward signs of biodiversity and the associated areas
should be considered as non-negotiable and fixed factors in
European spatial management, in keeping with the approach
of the document underpinning the various European policies:
the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP).

to reflect local circumstances and, at the same time, to be
comparable, taking due account of the on-going need for
specific indicators for agro-ecosystems signalling the presence
or absence of the area-wide, linear or isolated features which
typify Europe’s traditional farming landscapes. The presence
of different livestock breeds and types of land-holding pattern
should also be reflected in the choice of biodiversity indicators,
in relation with the different spatial features that make up the
ecological fabric of the EU’s regions.

2.3.
The Committee of the Regions therefore hopes that in
preparing a framework to define the indicators, account will
firstly be taken of the proposals for biodiversity indicators
made by the Member States, who have long been engaged,
alongside their regional and local authorities, in identifying
criteria for selecting priority indicators. It also hopes that this
will subsequently be fleshed out with the introduction of an
integrated information exchange system.

Policy to protect the environment and preserve biodiv-
2.4.
types of human activity and areas of
ersity in different
intervention ties in closely with the individual actions pro-
moted by local and regional authorities — either directly, or
in cooperation with the broader and more complex initiatives
undertaken by the Member States, the European Environment
Agency or under international protocols.

In this respect, the Committee of the Regions hopes
2.5.
that the recent worldwide protocols and agreements on the
environment represent more than a momentary ideological
shift by individual national governments who wish to dis-
tinguish themselves from their predecessors, and represent a
real commitment to protecting the greatest possible number
of living animal and plant species, as this would undoubtedly
have a positive impact on preserving biodiversity.

2.

The Committee of the Regions’ recommendations

The Committee of the Regions agrees with the Euro-
2.1.
pean Commission’s view that the action plans need to be
monitored and their effectiveness assessed, and that ‘indicators’
should be established for project implementation and sustaina-
ble use of policy instruments in implementing individual
Community actions.

2.6.
Furthermore, the compilation of guides to proper
production in agriculture, industry and other sectors, and prior
cost-benefit calculations of specific policies, should include
assessments of the direct and indirect effects of such actions in
terms of higher or lower levels of protection of biodiversity,
avoiding the adoption of purely production-driven or econ-
omic parameters and assessing their direct and indirect
environmental costs and benefits.

2.2.
Although the European Commission, the European
Environment Agency, the Member States and relevant inter-
national organisations have devoted considerable efforts to the
issue, they have not yet come up with precise indicators for
the action plans’ implementation system. The Commission’s
report to the Helsinki summit does however provide a full
picture of
these activities. The
Committee of the Regions stresses the need for the indicators

the state of progress of

The Committee of the Regions believes the impact of
2.7.
man-made global climate change on natural and semi-natural
systems must be monitored, together with its local economic
implications (e.g. the link between snowfall levels and moun-
tain tourism, variation in sea levels, fluctuations in water and
drinking water resources, the emergence of new, climate-
related illnesses, etc.).

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Emissions of man-made greenhouse gases such as CO2, CFCs
and N2O are affecting today’s climate: how much these changes
will make themselves felt, and where, remains a matter of
controversy within the scientific community. The most expect-
ed and feared effects may be resumed as follows:

— rising sea levels;

— shifts in patterns of precipitation, possibly affecting

natural vegetation, agro-systems and forests;

— accelerating loss of biodiversity;

— more frequent occurrence of extreme weather conditions;

— fluctuations in precipitation and temperature;

— changes in the size of areas under snow and glacier cover;

— changes in the size of areas under vegetation and types of

cover;

— changes in the populations of
species (insects, weeds etc.).

invasive thermophilic

Against this backdrop, the identification of climate change
indicators which can detect changes in the above-mentioned
environments and the relevant biocoenoses are specially
important in protecting biodiversity.

2.8.
The Committee of the Regions notes the need to
factors
monitor the state of biodiversity and the critical
presenting the greatest local threat (as is already being done in
Switzerland and the Netherlands, where dedicated biodiversity
monitoring networks have been set up). A monitoring system
based on local structures, along agency lines, would allow
conservation policies to be guided and adjusted at local level,

Brussels, 15 November 2001.

while fitting them into the national and international legal
framework.

In short, monitoring biodiversity at local level would help to:

— improve biodiversity-related knowledge;

— accurately identify critical situations and assess their

seriousness;

— ascertain the exact relationship between sources of press-

ure and environmental indicators;

— establish practical foundations for local and regional

spatial development modelling;

— provide technical and scientific back-up for decision-
making processes and for national-level environmental
planning;

— evaluate the results of natural heritage management

policies, through the use of indicators;

— assess in economic terms the expected or actual results of

specific environmental management measures;

— bring Member States into line with the European Union’s
biodiversity information standards (local Agenda 21).

2.9.
Lastly, the Committee of the Regions believes that
existing environmental data networks should be streamlined,
and a ‘network of networks’ set up along the lines of
the European Environment Agency system. Environmental
information is a key factor in managing biodiversity in
practical terms, especially at local level. Effective coordination
between regional environmental monitoring bodies and the
national and European level is essential if the quality of the
‘information chain’ is to be ensured.

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Jos CHABERT