Europe has failed to appreciate just how diverse its wildlife is, and is not doing enough to protect even its poster-child animals such as the Iberian lynx, along with rare bears, storks and warblers. That is the message from a report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Council of Europe, which accuses the continent’s nations of not doing enough to protect biodiversity.
Loss of habitat is of prime concern. In the 1990s some 7700 square kilometres of Europe’s fields and forests gave way to car parks, roads, shopping malls and other buildings. That is equivalent to five new cities as big as London.
In 2003, 53 European nations agreed on nine issues they needed to address to prevent biodiversity loss. But they have done well in only one of them: designating areas as protected nature parks. These areas now account for 17 per cent of the land surface, compared with a worldwide average of about 12 per cent.
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Other issues, such as halting the introduction of alien species and promoting farm diversity, need to be taken up much more strongly by governments, says Frits Schlingemann of UNEP’s European regional office. “We need to acknowledge that biodiversity protection should be included in incentives created for farmers,” he says. This may conflict with the World Trade Organization’s free-trade rules, however.
UNEP presented the report on Wednesday at the Biodiversity in Europe conference at Lake Plitvice, Croatia.
