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EU Resolution on Wilderness in Europe
Conference on Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas Last updated 6 June 2009 |
In a breakthrough moment for wild land in Europe, the spark of an idea from a meeting in September 2007 has within a few months cascaded into a remarkable coalition for European wildlands, a highly supportive resolution being adopted in the European Parliament at the beginning of February 2009, and with a major conference backed by the EU Commission and Presidency to take place shortly in May 2009. Thus in less than two years, the determination and goodwill of a few people has been translated on the European stage into the potential of a mechanism for developing a continental policy and strategy on wildlands. While the early stages of this went without my notice until recently, I am determined to ensure that full coverage is given here so that support for these events can be generated in Britain. I will also document any response there is from Britain, its governments and statutory agencies. EUROPARC is a federation of national parks, regional parks, nature parks and biosphere reserves in 39 European countries. At its annual meeting in September 2007 at Ceský Krumlov, Czech Republic, EUROPARC hosted a round table meeting on "Wilderness in the European Union", attended by some 300 protected area experts from 24 European countries. They examined the concept of wilderness in the European Union, and discussed how to place wilderness on the European agenda, find ways of promoting its importance and draw up guidance for the stewardship of wilderness. After the round table, EUROPARC, PAN Parks, Eurosite, Wild Europe and the World Commission on Protected Areas joined together in October 2007 in a Wild Europe Initiative to sign a Resolution on Wilderness Areas (1). The resolution was addressed to the European Commission and the EU member states. It emphasised the importance of protecting Europe’s remaining large areas of natural habitat with non-intervention management, and pointed to the benefits of this wilderness in retaining biodiversity, support for sustainable communities, and for addressing climate change.
A key sentence in that
original resolution questioned whether there was an incompatibility with
the European system of protected areas (the Natura 2000 system of SACs and
SPAs) and wildland (2,3): There are obvious parallels to our system of protected area designation in Britain as the level of management intervention to maintain the favourable conservation status of an SSSI is invariably inimical to the existence of wild land. However, this overt challenge to conservation orthodoxy was short lived as by June, 2008, a revised version of the resolution was presented for endorsement that had the sentence on the Natura 2000 system removed, and a new sentence included that called on the European Commission to develop appropriate recommendations that would provide guidance to the member states of the EU on the best approaches for ensuring the protection of these natural habitats (4). The resolution with its signatories was subsequently submitted to the European Commissioner for the Environment, Stavros Dimas, in August. Further advocacy work by EUROPARC was carried out in Brussels in partnership with the Wild Europe Initiative, drawing on the support of all the networks involved, in an effort to generate momentum in the European institutions on the issue of wilderness. While the original resolution had been altered, the concern about wild land and the Natura 2000 system has obviously not gone away as EUROPARC members Sumava National Park and Bavarian Forest National Park hosted an international colloquium on 25-28 January 2009 in Srni, Sumava National Park, Czech Republic, on the subject of "The appropriateness of non-intervention management for protected areas and Natura 2000 locations" (1) The Wild Europe Initiative is constituted as an initiative rather than an organization to ensure flexibility, and to avoid being seen to be linked to any one area or country (5). It aims to promote a coordinated strategy for protection and restoration of large natural habitat areas, often labelled as ‘wild’ or ‘nearly wild’ lands, through joint action among key players. It seeks to identify, value and promote the benefits of wild lands and large natural habitat areas, assessing how best to translate them into specific ventures bringing potential income and employment for local communities, farmers and landholders as well as society in general. The initiative is steered by a ‘core group’ including personnel, generally at director level, from: Council of Europe, Countdown 2010, Europarc Federation, European Commission, IUCN Europe, IUCN Global, IUCN Wilderness Task Force, Natuurmonumenten, PANParks Foundation, UNESCO, Wilderness Foundation, WWF Europe office and Carpathian Programme office. EU Resolution on Wilderness in Europe - 3 February 2009 The Wild Europe Initiative resolution and lobbying proved effective, as a draft report on Wilderness in Europe was drawn up by Gyula Hegyi, MEP, and the Environment Directorate in October 2008 for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament. This report contained a motion on a European Parliament resolution on Wilderness in Europe. It was brought before the Committee in early December 2008, and was adopted by a vote of 33 to 1. From this committee stage, it was scheduled go to the European Parliament on 3 February 2009. As a means to provide background information before this plenary vote on the resolution, a mini conference on Wilderness Areas in the EU was held on 28 January 2009 in the Parliament Building in Brussels (6). As well as speakers calling for support for the resolution, and introducing the Wild Europe Initiative, other speakers addressed the continuing discussion about the suitability of the Natura 2000 system for wilderness protection, one using the example of the PAN Parks wilderness system of untouched core zones, in which no extractive use such as forestry or hunting are allowed and where the only management interventions are those aimed at maintaining or restoring natural ecological processes. The vote on the Wilderness in Europe resolution on 3 February was carried by 538 votes to 19 with 12 abstentions. It is a non-legislative resolution that brings forward a range of recommendations for the European Commission to take up, including (7):
The resolution on wilderness was adopted on the basis that no new legislation would be required to achieve the aims of the resolution, and with the knowledge that there is to be a review of the Birds and Habitats Directives with a view, where necessary, to make amendments to the Natura 2000 system. Thus they want to accommodate wilderness within the existing Natura 2000 system without going for separate legislation.
I am sceptical about this
and wonder if they will have to
revisit this decision not to legislate if it proves impossible to have
their "defined wilderness" under the Natura 2000 system. Gyula Hegyi, the
Hungarian MEP who proposed the resolution, already senses this. He said in
support of the resolution:
An indication perhaps of
the difficulties that may lay ahead for Wilderness in Europe is that in
the days since the resolution has been adopted, the media coverage in the
English speaking press has been non-existent. Only PAN Parks has issued a
News release,
Vlado Vancura,
the Conservation
Manager for PAN Parks said (8): Sensing good support for themselves from the resolution, PAN Parks is the only pan-European organization that supports the designation of wilderness core areas in large scale nature parks. I sent an email commending the EU resolution to the government ministers responsible for wildlife in the home countries: Huw Irranca-Davies MP, Minister for the Natural and Marine Environment, Wildlife and Rural Affairs, DEFRA Michael Russell MSP, Minister for Environment, The Scottish Government (since replaced by Roseanna Cunningham) Jane Davidson, the Minster for Environment Sustainability and Housing, Welsh Assembly Government The Scottish Government replied, showing its support for wildland in Scotland and said that Scottish Natural Heritage will be attending the Prague conference (see later) and that it "looks forward to playing a constructive part in future discussions" (9) The Welsh Assembly Government has also replied. They say that they have been advised by the Countryside Council for Wales that there are few significant areas of Wales that can still be considered wild. However, the assembly government "is responding positively to the EU Resolution, and is taking an active role in delivering its aims in Wales in co-operation with other stakeholders and project originators" (10) It would seem that now, after a month has passed, that I am unlikely to get a reply on the behalf of Mr Irranca-Davies, the minister responsible for Natural England, and thus for wildlife in England. Conference on Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas As the report on Wilderness in Europe was being drafted, the European Commission agreed with the Czech Presidency of the European Union to hold a conference on wild and nearly wild land areas. This will take place in Prague 27, 28 May 2009. The Conference, which is by invitation only, will bring together policy makers, academics, civil society and other interested groups and individual experts from some 40 countries (11). The Conference on Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas will assess and propose a range of future policy options designed to promote a coordinated strategy for the protection and restoration of these areas across Europe, and thus give life to the EU resolution on Wilderness in Europe. The main objectives of the Conference are:
Building on these objectives, the conference aims to
The build up to the conference is being supported by the production of a range of background briefing documents. So far in these briefings, a discussion document on the benefits of wilderness and wildlands has been posted, along with a definition of wild and nearly wild areas, as well as valuing and utilising the benefits of wild areas. It is very much worth reading the definitions document as it is a valuable contribution that covers a number of important issues such as recognising that there is a continuum of wildland, and that zonation in a protected areas approach where identification of core, buffer and transition areas – each with different types and levels of intervention - can effectively support this continuum. It also has a marker for green infrastructure when it references the concept of “urban and neo-urban wildness” where issues of personal perception and values play as much of a role as geography.
Importantly for me,
however, is that it makes a strong case for the need for definition,
something that is resisted in Britain (even by supposed advocacy groups)
and which has held us back in casting a new and wilder future for our
landscapes (12): Mark Fisher 6 February 2009, updated 6 March 2009 POSELSTVÍ (Message) FROM PRAGUE - An Agenda for Europe’s Wild AreasSummary of the Conference on Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas, Prague, Czech Republic, 27-28 May 2009 Some 250 participants from 40 countries attended the conference. My informant at the meeting laid out the broad issues raised as he saw them:
Having seen the mapping, none of this is surprising although there are scaling issues that obscure some of the smaller wild areas across Europe that have both a measure of the biophysical reality of a wilderness, but also a management intent to maintain them so, such as the designated wilderness in Finland, and the PAN Park wilderness and other voluntary wilderness, as in Italy. On the second point, Western Europe and especially the UK, is a mass of agricultural landscape where open habitat species in pastoralist systems are at the apex of the conservationist's admiration. Forested landscapes appear to be an antithesis that needs breaking to the will of these arch grazers. Thus a project was announced at the conference entitled Wild Europe Field Programme: A Field Programme for creating European Wilderness (13). Backed by WWFNl, ARK, Eurosite and Free Nature, it seeks to link up SACs and SPAs to form areas of about 100,000ha, with a target of 10 of these in the EU by 2020.
Their program brochure, which has the usual
cute shots of cattle, exclaims that "wilderness is more than forest
alone". They claim that the "majority of the European flora and fauna
evolved in tandem with large herbivores and were able to find a place in
extensive agricultural landscapes" and that the "natural process of
grazing can be sustained with the reintroduction of wild cattle and
horses, European bison and other extinct species". Convenient, that, in
the predominantly agricultural landscapes enclosed by SPAs and SACs.
Rather than substantiate these contentions, the program justifies itself
by wanting to take a "new, inspiring view on nature". They claim these
grazed landscapes will change the strategy from traditional nature
conservation towards a more development based approach and which also: The evidence so far is that the even-handedness (and perhaps adequate legitimacy) of half-open (and thus half-forested) landscapes is never enough for these pastoralists, whose biophysically artificial and incomplete systems drive everything to a greater level of deforestation.
The conference summary (14) recognises the
need for a co-ordinated Pan-European approach towards protecting
Wilderness Areas. Here comes the puff for SACs and SPAs: At least this did not imply wholehearted agreement. The difficulty of squaring the Natura 2000 system with wildland is revealed by the tortuous to-ing and fro-ing of the first three policy development points:
On the last of the broad issues of the
conference - the entry level to
landscapes to be considered wild - this concern very likely emanates from the Scottish
contingent to the conference. Scotland more than most in the UK, bigs up
its wildland potential, and will have been dismayed at the complete
insignificance that their contribution makes to the overall picture in
Europe. They may have taken umbrage at this, but the lesson for them is
startlingly clear, and is exemplified in a recent briefing paper on
protected landscapes at a Natural England Board meeting. At issue is that
the apogee of our protected landscape approach in the UK, our National
Parks, may fall out of even its lowly place as an IUCN Category V
protected area (15): The lesson here is that there has to be a different emphasis in our landscapes, and it will not be given just by covering our National Parks or other areas with SACs and SPAs, nor will application of the European Landscape Convention to these areas make a difference since the emphasis in the convention is that "natural and cultural components are taken together, not separately" (see Landscape protection - too many layers, too confusing, no overall plan (16). Both of these just allow business as usual for these farmed landscapes. They need not only extensification as a starting point, but also a return of the biophysical reality of wildland, its component species and its ecological processes. 6 June 2009 (1) Wild Europe Initiative: Promoting Wilderness in Europe, EUROPARC Federation www.europarc.org/what-we-do/projects-and-programmes/wild-europe-initiative (2) EUROPARC Newsletter 13, November 2007 www.europarc.org/uploaded/documents/24.pdf (3) Resolution on Wilderness Areas, 1 October 2007, link in EUROPARC and PAN Parks call for urgent action to protect Europe’s wilderness areas, PAN Park News 15 October 2007 www.panparks.org/index.php?name=OE-DocManager&file=download&id=2128&keret=N&showheader=N (4) Resolution on Wilderness Areas, link in Make a difference - Sign the resolution for wilderness in Europe!, Countdown 2010 www.countdown2010.net/index.php?s=file_download&id=178 (5) Conference on Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas in Europe 27 - 28 May 2009, Prague, Clearing-House Mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Czech Republic http://chm.nature.cz/stories/conference-wildnearly-wild-areas-eu-27-28-may/ (6) Important Corner Stone in EU - Wilderness Conservation, PAN Parks News 28 January 2009 www.panparks.org/Newsroom/News?page=details&oldal=1&news_id=263 (7) European Parliament resolution of 3 February 2009 on Wilderness in Europe (2008/2210(INI)) European Parliament http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P6-TA-2009-0034&language=EN (8) Historical event for Europe's Wilderness Conservation, PAN Parks News 4 February 2009 www.panparks.org/Newsroom/News?page=details&oldal=1&news_id=264 (9) Scottish Government response to EU Resolution, 24 February 2009 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/europe/scot_reply.pdf (10) Welsh Assembly Government response to EU Resolution, 3 March 2009 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/europe/wales_reply.pdf (11) Conference on Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas, Czech Presidency of the EU Council and the European Commission, 27-28 May 2009, Prague (12) Definitions of Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas http://www.wildeurope.org/attachments/definition_of_wilderness_and_wild_land.pdf (13) Wild Europe Field Programme: A Field Programme for creating European Wilderness, WWFNl, ARK, Eurosite and Free Nature http://assets.wnf.nl/downloads/wildeuropebochure_def.pdf (14) POSELSTVÍ FROM PRAGUE - An Agenda for Europe’s Wild Areas www.wildeurope.org/attachments/047_POSELSTVI%20FROM%20PRAGUE_final%20version.pdf (15) Natural England’s Draft Policy on Protected Landscapes, NEB PU16 06 20 May 2009 www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/NEBPU1606%20_tcm6-11160.pdf (16) Landscape protection - too many layers, too confusing, no overall plan, Self-willed Land, July 2006 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/land_protect.htm url:www.self-willed-land.org.uk/wild_europe.htm www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk |