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BLOCK
02 THE ANALYSIS
The journalists´ experience
The Natura 2000 Network, a great unknown,
a world waiting to be discovered
Let´s us focus these arguments on the environment in general and the
Natura 2000 Network in particular. I will build on them to vindicate some
of my thoughts about what information about the Natura 2000 Network
should be based on. Let´s say these could be the main ideas, the background
for writing or speaking about the network.
The essential background
1.- The Natura 2000 Network is the main biodiversity conservation instrument
of the European Union and, in total, the largest network of conservation
areas in the world. Over 26.000 sites or areas that add up to
more than a million square kilometres, nearly 18 per cent of the earth´s
surface. Spain, with 150.000 square kilometres that amounto to almost
30 per cent of its land territory, is the country that contributes the most
to that network.
Raúl Casado
EFEverde editor
He has been working as a journalist for 25 years for Agencia EFE, where
he has developed his whole professional career - at first in different
bureaus and later in the National department. He has specialized
in scientific and environmental matters and has been the Agencia
EFE correspondent in many world summits on climate change and
biodiversity. Since January 2013 he is responsible for the Life+ Infonatur
2000 project, an initiative participated by Agencia EFE that aims to
publicise the significance and meaning of the Natura 2000 Network.
Professionalism, rigour, specialization and critical sense. These are the
four premises on which, in my opinion, journalism should be based as
regards any area. And the environment no less. Professionalism to know
what you want to put across and to whom; rigour to use the most reliable
sources; specialization to know and understand what you want to communicate
and be able to do it; and critical sense to appreciate the real
value that data and opinions rightly have.
2.- These are not traditional protected sites or strict nature sanctuaries. On
the contrary, they are very often areas long used and intervened by the
hand of man. In fact, the kind of biodiversity conservation that the Natura
2000 Network proposes depends greatly on humans continuing doing in
these sites the same things they have been doing for decades or even
centuries.
An example: some ecosystems that have been radically shaped by humans,
as the wooded pasturelands or the rice paddocks, are the ideal
habitat for many species. The same could be said about grazing areas,
cereal farms or pasture fields.
And another example that may help even more in understading why
the sites of the Natura 2000 Network cannot be thought of as nature
reserves. Some of those sites are even urban: towns as Cáceres, Almendralejo
and Badajoz host within them Special Protection Areas for
Birds. And of course, nobody thinks of a town as a nature sanctuary.
3.- The Natura 2000 Network should be seen (this is one of the duties of
journalism professionals) as an opportunity, as a driver for development
and never as an obstacle for the economy and even less for the welfare
of the local population that inhabits those areas.
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Natura 2000 Network. Handbook for journalists