{"id":91924,"date":"2018-05-17T11:06:35","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T09:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eeb.org\/?p=91924"},"modified":"2018-10-29T11:11:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T10:11:07","slug":"commission-failing-as-natures-last-line-of-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/commission-failing-as-natures-last-line-of-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"Commission failing as nature&#8217;s last line of defence"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Nature protection efforts are being undermined by the European Commission\u2019s failure to consistently challenge Member States on illegal nature destruction, warn four nature NGOs in a <a href=\"https:\/\/database.foeeurope.org\/sites\/all\/modules\/civicrm\/extern\/url.php?u=5153&amp;qid=77624\">new publication today<\/a>. [1]<\/h4>\n<p>The European Commission is &#8216;nature\u2019s last line of defence&#8217;, as the body responsible for enforcing EU nature laws and challenging violations. However, cases of violations are regularly delayed, neglected or undermined by the Commission\u2019s inaction, say Birdlife Europe, European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Friends of the Earth Europe, and WWF.<\/p>\n<p>The new publication features case studies of damage to protected areas and species across seven countries, where complaints have not resulted in compliance or overall improvement for nature [2] \u2013 including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>failure to address dredging and excessive water abstraction in Do\u00f1ana\u2019s national park in Spain,<\/li>\n<li>failure to preserve breeding habitats for meadow birds in the Netherlands, as well as species-rich grasslands in Germany,<\/li>\n<li>failure to assess hydropower projects in Romania in compliance with nature and water legislation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The NGOs say the European Commission needs a \u2018step change\u2019 in action to enforce the nature laws and fulfill its obligation to halt biodiversity loss by 2020. Only the recent prosecution of Poland\u2019s government to halt illegal deforestation in Bia\u0142owie\u017ca stands out as a shining exception.<\/p>\n<p>MEPs and European Commission officials will discuss the cases with NGOs in the European Parliament today (Thursday 17 May), a year after a Commission \u2018Action Plan\u2019 to better protect nature, and 18 months after the successful #NatureAlert campaign to save the EU\u2019s nature laws.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sergiy Moroz, Senior Policy Officer for EEB said:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen protected nature is in trouble \u2013 whether from illegal logging, damaging projects, or intensive agriculture \u2013 the European Commission is often nature\u2019s last line of defence. With many EU governments systematically failing to apply EU nature laws, the European Commission must act as a reliable back-stop and take prompt infringement action to conserve Europe&#8217;s precious natural habitats.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Adrian Bebb, Food Agriculture and Biodiversity Coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe <\/strong>said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cEU citizens have a right to vibrant nature, which is vital to health and wellbeing. Unfortunately, we are seeing that rare nature that should have the highest levels of EU protection is severely threatened. The EU is often the last line of defence for our nature and wildlife, but that only works if the European Commission is proactive in challenging illegal destruction.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Ariel Brunner, Senior Head of Policy for BirdLife Europe &amp; Central Asia<\/strong> said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIn public, the European Commission stresses the importance of the role the rule of law plays as a fundamental value of the EU. But when it comes to enforcing the environmental acquis, there is a clear lack of action. That not only concerns prominent cases like \u2018Dieselgate\u2019, but many other cases relating to the non-implementation of EU\u2019s nature directives. Here the European Commission is gambling with the future of Europe and contributing to citizens\u2019 lack of trust in the institutions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Sabien Leemans, Senior Biodiversity Policy Officer for WWF European Policy Office<\/strong> said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe European Commission\u2019s dealing with illegal logging in Bia\u0142owie\u017ca was best practice and deserved the term \u2018guardian of the treaties\u2019 \u2013 not only did the infringement procedure against Poland start quickly after the NGO complaint, but during the ECJ case, interim measures were introduced to avoid irreversible damage to the forest. Unfortunately, such pro-active enforcement is an exception, and nature is paying the price, for example in Do\u00f1ana, one of Europe\u2019s most precious wetlands, which is drying out due to illegal agricultural activities while the Commission is dragging its feet. This lack of decisive enforcement is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>ENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Notes to editors:<\/strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[1] \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/eeb.org\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php?juwpfisadmin=false&amp;action=wpfd&amp;task=file.download&amp;wpfd_category_id=55&amp;wpfd_file_id=91917&amp;token=bfa8cf3d47e81dc7877faea1175b4ad1&amp;preview=1\">Nature\u2019s Last Line of Defence<\/a>\u2019<\/p>\n<p>[2] The seven cases of concern are: Do\u00f1ana in southern Spain, protection of grasslands in Germany, meadow bird breeding habitats in the Netherlands, nature protections in Italy and Austria, hydropower in Romania, and turtle nesting in Cyprus.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nature protection efforts are being undermined by the European Commission\u2019s failure to consistently challenge Member States on illegal nature destruction, warn four nature NGOs in a<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":91925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117,116,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","category-nature-agriculture","category-news","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Blacktailed-Godwit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}