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Legal status
The Natura 2000 Network was born as such in 1992 and it includes
sites designated under two key European laws: the Birds Directive,
whose first version is from 1979 and the last from 2009, and the Habitats
Directive, from 1992. It includes different types of sites:
• Sites of Community Importance (SCIs) are places that host natural
habitats or species of particular value at a EU level. These sites are
designated according to the Habitats Directive. The SCIs change
their name to Special Conservation Areas (SCAs) once they have
been official designated by member states and their management
plans approved.
• The Special Protection Areas for birds (SPAs) are places that host
wild bird species to be conserved in the European Union. SPAs are
designated under the Birds Directive.
Both SCIs and SPAs can be land or marine areas, although the marine
network is still much less developed than the land network.
The protection of these areas aims at guaranteeing the survival in
the long term of the most valuable and endangered species and habitats.
In order to achieve this, member states of the European Union
must take the due measures to maintain a favourable conservation
condition, such as the approval of specific management plans. These
management plans are essential to get to know the conservation
condition of our natural wealth and to maintain or improve it, as well
as to ascertain the necessary funding for it.
In Spain about 24 per cent of Natura 2000 Network sites are being
managed with a specific management plan, despite the fact that all
sites should have had a plan approved before 2011, according to
Law 42/2007 on Natural Heritage and Biodiversity.
In spite of the importance of the Natura 2000 Network, there is a
general lack of knowledge of it in European society. The percentage
of Europeans that can say that they know its name and what it stands
for verges on 10 per cent.
Natura 2000 Network. Handbook for journalists
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