Press releases
Nature conservation / Agricultural policy / Rural development / EU eastward enlargement
Does the European agricultural policy benefit the European biodiversity target?
Expert conference discussed CAP environmental impacts in the 12 new EU Member States
Bonn. June 20, 2007. The European Union has set itself the ambitious target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010. The twelve new EU Member States have an important role to play in this regard as their share of high nature value farmland is particularly high. The biodiversity hot spots for species dependent on ecologically compatible agricultural management are located in the new accession countries and in the „old“ EU Member States in south-eastern Europe. Halting biodiversity loss in Europe is thus highly dependent on successful conservation actions in the new EU Member States.
Agriculture can support nature conservation objectives but also has the potential to undermine them. Therefore the detailed design of the agricultural policy plays an important role in this regard. To discuss these issues, the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) together with the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU) and the European Nature Heritage Fund EuroNatur held a three-day conference in Bonn, ending today.
Numerous presentations by participants from various EU Member States, scientists, the European Commission, and the European Court of Auditors showed that the Member States made use of the opportunities offered by the European agricultural policy for supporting the biodiversity target in different ways. Good examples showing clear targets and strategies with a focus on securing ecologically compatible farming practices contrasted with other examples where the designated agri-environmental measures do not meet requirements and principally fund intensification. This would appear to be caused by a lack of information, the imbalanced distribution of appropriations for the first and second pillars of agricultural policy, inequitable eligibility conditions, and a lack of administrative capacities for integrating the needs of nature conservation and environmental protection.
It was stressed that the European biodiversity target will clearly not be met if the course of the EU agricultural policy can not be changed in the very short term. „I'm afraid that once again we are taking the wrong path. First we provide agricultural subsidies which destroy ecologically compatible farming and then we again try to save what remains to be saved, at great effort and expense“ stated BfN President Hartmut Vogtmann at the end of the conference. He said it was particularly grave that there are no signs of a strategy for securing biodiversity services from smallholdings. „Economically, smallholdings have no chance of survival. It is all the more important that all agri-policy instruments aiming at agricultural structural change are made conditional upon compliance with minimum environmental standards and that more funding is made available under the second pillar. Current financial appropriations for Natura 2000 are not sufficient. There is only a small window of opportunity left. We expect that as early as 2008 at the occasion of the 'CAP health check' the interests of nature conservation and environmental protection are given more weight. It is very clear that we risk failing to meet our biodiversity commitments which we have also made at the international level. Indeed, the signs are so obvious that we cannot but take appropriate steps.“ said Hartmut Vogtmann.
Press secretary Franz August Emde
Deputy press secretary Dr. Uwe Riecken
German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN)
Konstantinstr. 110
D-53179 Bonn
Germany
Telephone 0049-(0)228/84 91-4444
Telefax 0049-(0)228/84 91-1039
E-mail presse@bfn.de
Internet www.bfn.de
