UK criticised for failure to defend European nature protection laws
This article tells us that an alliance of nine European governments, led by Germany and including France, Spain, Italy and Poland, have written to the European commission to warn it not to dismantle nature protection laws.
But conservationists have questioned why Britain is not part of the effort to publicly defend the habitats and birds directives ahead of a review by the commission aimed at cutting red tape for business.
“The EU nature conservation directives have proven their worth and become an essential component of biodiversity conservation. It will not be possible to achieve the goal of the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020 without them,” say the environment ministers in an unprecedented letter to Karmenu Vella, the EU environment commissioner.
The two directives form the backbone of Europe’s nature conservation. The habitat directive aims to protect some 220 habitats and approximately 1,000 species. It led to the setting up of a network of Special Areas of Conservation, which together with the existing Special Protection Areas form a network of protected sites across the European Union called Natura 2000. The birds directive aims to protect all European wild birds.
There is growing fear in Europe that the tough conservation laws will be weakened at a meeting in December when they undergo a “fitness check”. EU president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has declared he would like to merge and overhaul the two directives to make them more “business-friendly” .
The omission of the UK environment secretary, Liz Truss, from signatories to the letter sent on Wednesday, has led some conservationists to infer that the chancellor, George Osborne, backs moves to weaken the legislation.