INTRODUCTION

The continuing loss of biodiversity is an issue of global concern. Europe's biological diversity, in addition to displaying a number of important ecological characteristics, is testament to the millennial symbiosis between man and his natural environment. In effect, more than on any other continent, human activities have been shaping biodiversity over centuries. Ecosystems were relatively stable until the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the past two centuries. Today, however, biodiversity faces a major crisis at both global and European levels, the implications of which still have not been fully appreciated. Biodiversity is indeed passing through a period of major crisis. Most natural or semi-natural, continental and coastal ecosystems are now subject to significant modifications as a result of human activities (land use changes, intensification of agriculture, land abandonment, urban sprawl, climate change, etc.). Scientists expect that these disruptions will cause an unprecedented drop in the wealth of specific and genetic diversity.

In order to reverse these negative trends, in 1979 the EU enacted the Birds Protection Directive, and in 1992 a sister directive, Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora (the Habitats Directive). In addition, under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the EU agreed in 2001 to a global target of ‘significantly reducing the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010’. After this failed attempt to stop biodiversity loss, the European Commission adopted a new strategy to halt biodiversity loss in the EU by 2020.

The Birds Directive makes it a requirement for Member States to ‘preserve, maintain and re-establish sufficient diversity and area of habitats for all wild birds’ and in particular to designate a range of Special Protection Areas (SPAs). The aim of the Habitats Directive is to contribute towards ensuring biodiversity through the conservation of natural habitats and of wild flora and fauna throughout the Member States. Accordingly, measures taken pursuant to the Directive must be designed to ‘maintain at or restore to’, a favourable conservation status, natural habitats and species of wild flora and fauna ‘of Community interest’. It is thus ‘an essential objective of the Directive that natural habitats be maintained at and, where appropriate, restored to a favourable conservation status’.