In its report “On The Road to Recovery?” released this week, BirdLife Europe said an end to harmful EU subsidies in agriculture is the only way of making progress towards meeting the EU’s 2020 biodiversity target.
The report concludes that unless harmful EU subsidies in agriculture, fisheries, transport and energy sectors come to an end and funding for nature conservation increases, European governments risk derailing the strategy entirely. These were the exact same reasons why it missed its 2010 goal.
Cyprus still has a long way to go towards ensuring the biodiversity target is met, the report says. Cyprus has designated many Natura 2000 sites, but huge gaps still exist regarding the management and protection of these key areas. The illegal but widespread practice of bird trapping in Cyprus is another reason why Cyprus could fail to meet this target if swift actions are not taken, according to the report.
BirdLife Europe intends to repeat this assessment at regular intervals until 2020. The 2020 target was agreed after the EU failed to meet a similar target to halt biodiversity loss by 2010.
On the EU level, according to the head of EU policy at BirdLife Europe, Ariel Brunner: Making wrong decisions on the EU budget and agriculture reform in the current negotiations mean that the EU risks failing the strategy”
The solution BirdLife Europe proposes includes reforming the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and steering the current EU budget negotiations for the period 2014-2020 towards investments in biodiversity and ecosystems.
BirdLife believes the EU 2020 Strategy has correctly identified the actions that are needed to save biodiversity and widespread evidence gathered by BirdLife shows that where such action has been taken, results do follow.
We are still in time to save our heritage and life support system, but time is running out and decisions taken over the next 18 months are crucial, said BirdLife Cyprus executive director Dr Clairie Papazoglou.
2009 Cyprus mail Ltd.