Birds in the European Union - BirdLife International

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vi ■ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The data presented and analysed in this publication are based on a huge amount of work carried out by several thousand ornithologists across the European Union and beyond over the last decades. Particular thanks are given to the national compilers and contributors—and the numerous organisations which they represent or with which they are associated—who collated and synthesised the ornithological information that formed the basis for this book. This review is closely related with and based on the data of the publication Birds in Europe (BirdLife International 2004), produced by BirdLife International and launched simultaneously in November 2004 on the occasion of a conference celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the EU Birds Directive, organised in Bergen op Zoom (NL) by the Netherlands EU Presidency (Netherlands Ministry for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality) and the European Commission’s Environment Directorate General. Thanks are given to all contributors to Birds in Europe (2004). Overall the review production was coordinated by Clairie Papazoglou and Konstantin Kreiser of the BirdLife International European Community Office. Ian Burfield did all analyses regarding the status assessment for birds at the EU level. Paul Donald and Fiona Sanderson analysed population trends. The whole project received support from a working group of the BirdLife Birds and Habitats Directive Task Force that included Eduard Osieck (then Task Force Coordinator), Ariel Brunner (LIPU/BirdLife Italy) and Zoltán Waliczky, Paul Donald and Nicola Crockford (RSPB/BirdLife UK). The following persons helped with the analyses on Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Important Bird Areas (IBAs): Austria: Michael Dvorak; Belgium: Wim van de Bossche, Roland de Schaetzen, Peter Symens; Denmark: Thomas Vikstrøm; Finland: Teemu Lehtiniemi; France: Bernard Deceuninck; Germany: Claus Mayr, Hermann Hötker; Greece: Stavroula Papoulia; Ireland: Olivia Crowe; Italy: Ariel Brunner; Luxembourg: Patrick Lorgé; Netherlands: Eduard Osieck; Portugal: Iván Ramirez; Spain: Carlota Viada, Oscar Frías; Sweden: Björn Welander, Torsten Larsson; United Kingdom: Ian Fisher, Rhoda Ludford; Czech Republic: David Lacina; Cyprus: Iris Charalambidou; Estonia: Andres Kalamees; Hungary: Gergő Halmos; Latvia: Edmunds Račinskis; Lithuania: Liutauras Raudonikis; Malta: Joseph Mangion; Poland: Bogna Blaszkowska, Pawel Sidlo; Slovakia: Rastislav Rybanič; Slovenia: Tomaž Jančar. Thanks are given to Peter and Barbara Creed from NatureBureau for layout, design and print management. Mich Herrick designed the cover pages. Illustrations by: Richard Allen (Saxicola torquata), Tomasz Cofta (Acrocephalus paludicola and Acrocephalus schoenobaenus), Koen Devos (Charadrius alexandrinus and Milvus migrans), Ren Hathaway (Pandion haliaetus), Paul Hirst (Puffinus yelkouan), Mark Hulme (Platalea leucorodia), Jens Overgaard Christensen (Tetrao tetrix), Pavel Prochazka (Netta rufina), Michal Skakuj (Falco peregrinus), Maris Strazds (Limosa limosa and Ciconia ciconia), Carl Christian Tofte (Buteo rufinus), Juan Varela (Aquila adalberti and Tetrax tetrax), Jos Zwarts (Passer montanus). The European Commission, the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and Vogelbescherming Nederland, the BirdLife Partner in the Netherlands, are thanked for funding this publication. Special thanks are given to Umberto Gallo-Orsi and Johanna Winkelman for securing these funds.
■ INTRODUCTION WHY THIS REVIEW? Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Birds Directive (79/409/ EEC) BirdLife International aims to reflect on the successes of this remarkable piece of European legislation, and at the same time to contribute to its future implementation. This review looks back into the past 25 years, assessing the effect of the Directive for Europe’s wild birds and looking into the future to identify what we need to know to take the right political decisions for birds and their habitats. In particular, BirdLife International presents within this review: 1. A report, article by article of the Directive, of the status of birds at the Pan-European level and at the level of the EU with its current 25 Member States (EU25), assessing, where possible, the impact of the Directive, based on cutting-edge data. 2. Recommendations for action to address the challenges identified for the future. 3. In addition, two comprehensive lists of the species listed on Annex I and Annex II of the Birds Directive with their conservation status. THE BIRDS DIRECTIVE The EU Birds Directive, the Directive for the Conservation of Wild Birds (79/409/EEC) was adopted in 1979. The Directive was adopted under a French Presidency of the Community, at a time of widespread concern about declining populations of European birds. At that time, there were nine members of the European Economic Community (as it was called then). Since 1979, the Birds Directive has formed a solid framework for bird conservation across the EU, and its geographical scope has enlarged together with the Union, to include also the ten new Members who joined in May 2004. It is no coincidence that birds were chosen for the first Directive on nature protection and it is no coincidence that the ‘Habitats’ Directive, which covers the rest of Europe’s wildlife and habitats, came so much later in 1992. Birds are beautiful, inspirational, popular, valued and international. Birds are excellent flagships and indicators of biodiversity, the environment and the sustainability of human activities. In 2004, the Birds Directive celebrates its 25th anniversary, and it quite fittingly applies now to 25 Member States. ■ What exactly is the Birds Directive and why is it so important? The Directive defines the minimum legal requirements and standards that all Member States must comply with, to protect and conserve wild birds and their habitats in their territory and in the EU as a whole. Together with the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), it forms the principal means by which the EU delivers its obligations under international Conventions, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the Ramsar, Bonn and Bern Conventions. The Birds Directive, together with the Habitats Directive are also among the main tools by which the EU can make progress towards achieving one of the objectives set by the EU Heads of State during the Gothenburg European Council in 2001, which is to halt biodiversity decline by 2010. ■ What does the Birds Directive regulate? The Directive regulates a number of elements in particular regarding species, sites and habitat protection: • It requires Member States to classify Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for those species listed in Annex I as well as for migratory bird species. It requires management and conservation of the sites classified as Special Protection Areas. It sets general provisions for species protection, whereby all species are protected from deliberate killing or destruction, destruction or damage to their eggs or nests, taking of their eggs etc. It regulates trade of species listed in Annex III. It regulates the hunting of certain species listed in Annex II and sets the limits within which Member States can define their hunting season, by saying hunting should not take place during the breeding seasons or during the return migration (in the case of migratory species). It includes a derogation article, which allows Member States to derogate from the protection articles, for species causing agricultural damage or for reasons of air safety among others. It encourages Member States to undertake ornithological research and lists a number of priority issues in Annex V. It requires Member States to report about the implementation of the Directive in their country. BIRDLIFE INTERNATIONAL AND THE BIRDS DIRECTIVE The Birds Directive is very central to the work priorities of BirdLife International. In the European Union BirdLife International has tied its work programme to the provisions of the Birds Directive. This is especially true as regards the site and species protection aspects of the Directive. ■ Site Protection The Important Bird Area (IBA) programme of BirdLife International is closely linked to the provisions of the Birds Directive. In fact, the SPA obligations arising from the Directive were the reason why BirdLife International started its IBA programme. The first IBA inventory was done by the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP, precursor of BirdLife International) by Osieck and Mörzer Bruyns (1981). Then the first European IBA inventory was published by Grimmett and Jones (1989). The second and more comprehensive inventory of IBAs for Europe was published in the year 2000 (Heath and Evans 2000). Several BirdLife Partners have also published their national IBA inventories in EU Member States. In 1998, BirdLife International re-developed its original set of criteria for IBA identification in order to take into account the needs for a global system of site selection. At the same time, the original criteria for selecting IBAs of Community Interest were also adapted to fit them into a coherent system of site selection criteria. These new criteria were called IBA C criteria (BirdLife International 1998) and were applied for the 15 EU countries that were members of the Union in 2000 (Heath and Evans 2000). BirdLife International has also worked closely with the ten countries that joined the Union in 2004. For all these countries, BirdLife Partners have done inventories applying the criteria C on their IBAs (Hora, Marhoul and Urban 2002, Lovászi 2002, Božič 2003, Kuus and Kalamees 2003, Borg and Sultana 2004, Iezekiel, Makris and Antoniou 2004, Račinskis 2004, Raudonikis 2004, Rybanič, Šutiakova and Benko 2004). The European Commission has used the IBA inventory a number of times to pursue action against certain Member States 1
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