index

BLOCK
02 THE ANALYSIS
The journalists´ experience
The Natura 2000 Network,
a diffuse and obsolete concept
Araceli Acosta
Editor at ABC newspaper and coordinator
of ABC´s Natural supplement
She joined ABC in 1997 and, since 2001, she is responsible for
environmental information in that newspaper. She coordinates the
ABC Natural supplement and organises the ABC Natural discussion
forums. In 2011 she was awarded the Fundación BBVA prize to
Knowledge Dissemination and Awareness Raising for the Conservation
of Biodiversity in Spain.
When I was invited to take part in this workshop, the first thing I did
was a search in the digital archives of ABC with my name and the
words “Natura Network”. I did not include “2000” to filter out thousands
of entries... Frankly, I did expect a “Sorry, no results found”. I have to
acknowledge, sorry about that, that I don´t remember having ever given
much attention to this concept. But 30 per cent of our territory belongs to
that network and that percentage is much higher if we take into account
simply our country´s conservation areas. As in most cases, good news
is no news. What is common, it´s often no news either.
But let´s return to my search in the paper´s digital archive. Despite
my initial pesimism, the search surprised me by returning five results.
However, an analysis of those five articles made me feel pesimistic
again and agree with the premise of this workshop – we need to reflect
on the causes of the lack of knowledge of this network.
Out of these five articles, one -from 2007- deals with how the legal status
of the network was reflected in our Natural Heritage and Biodiversity
Law, where habitats -as opposed to just certain areas and species- are
protected in their own right for the first time in Spanish law. Another
one from 2009 reported on the finding of a dozen of new species in the
waters of the Canary Islands, in the framework of a project aimed at
identifying areas that, due to their ecological importance, could become
protected marine sites. The idea was to support with scienfic information
their inclusion in the Natura 2000 Network. The other three, all from
2003, dealt with the controversial design of the Ebro river water transfer
included in the Spanish National Hydrological Plan.
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Natura 2000 Network. Handbook for journalists