2.4 Habitats Directive and Natura 2000 system

The EU Birds Directive (EU 2009) and the EU Habitats Directive (CEC 1992) are long-established key instruments of the EU nature protection legal and policy framework. The key mechanism to meet their biodiversity conservation objectives is the establishment and management of an EU-wide network called Natura 2000 that consists of special protection areas (SPAs) under the Birds Directive and special areas of conservation (SACs) under the Habitats Directive. While strict reserves and strictly protected areas are included, the larger part of Natura 2000 sites are sites that are also managed for other main land uses (e.g., forestry, agriculture, water use).  

Over half of all established Natura 2000 sites are forest areas, accounting for ca. 25 % of the total forest area of the EU-28. The area of forests under Natura 2000 varies significantly among the EU Member States, however. It ranges from 6.4% in the UK (before Brexit), ca. 10% in Finland and Sweden and Latvia (below average) to ca. 18% in France and 25% in Germany (similar to average), and even to ca. 44% in Slovakia and Slovenia, and 53% in Bulgaria (above average). On average, ca. 18% of all forests in the old EU Member States are designated as Natura 2000 sites, and 35% in the new Member States (EC 2015). 

In addition to climate change and land use impacts, the increased extraction of forest products and intensified forestry practices are assessed to have diverse impacts on the various habitats and species protected in the Natura 2000 network under the EU Birds and Habitats Directives. According to official reporting under EU Habitats Directive, ca. 85% of all forest habitat types included in the EU-wide Natura 2000 network of protected areas (which covers about 25% of all EU’s forests) are found to be in ‘poor’ (54%) or ‘bad’ (31%) conservation status and many forest-dependent species declining in the period 2013-2018. Approximately 14% of the assessments showed good conservation status (EC 2020, EEA 2020; Maes et al. 2020).   

Official reporting shows that forest biodiversity is particularly affected by the removal of old-growth forests, dead and dying trees, as well as by increased timber harvesting through intensive forestry including clear-cutting and other rotational harvesting methods, the plantation of monocultures, and whole-tree harvesting for biomass use (EEA 2020; Maes et al. 2020; Maes et al. 2023). Forestry is the dominant group of pressures reported for most of the Habitats Directive’ Annex I forest types: it amounts to 50% of all pressures for mixed forests, broadleaved deciduous and coniferous forests, to be found mainly in Central West and Central East Europe. For broadleaved evergreen forests, to be found mainly in Southern Europe, however, forestry accounts for only 20% of the pressures. In particular, over 90% of forest habitat assessments for boreal forests, to be found in Northern Europe show an unfavourable conservation status and worse trends than temperate forests in Central West and Central East and Mediterranean forests in South Europe (Maes et al. 2020).  

Intensive forestry practices are also among the largest pressure categories reported for species decline under the EU’s Natura 2000 network of protected areas under the Birds and Habitats Directives, affecting in particular arthropods, mammals, forest birds and non-vascular plants. Reporting shows that forest habitats are especially affected by the removal of dead and dying trees as well as by broader land use changes, such as conversion of natural or naturally regenerating forests to monocultures or other forest types (e.g., tree plantations, degraded forests such as coppice forests). Other habitat groups, e.g. grassland and heath habitats, are more significantly challenged by ongoing afforestation dynamics in the EU, which decrease the area of open landscape structures (EEA 2020; Maes et al. 2020). 

One reason for this incoherent implementation of the EU Nature Directives might be seen in the ineffective integration of both EU and national conservation policy into national forest policy and practices. These are implementation challenges that can be identified in almost all EU-28 countries, regardless of their forest policy priorities. From a historical perspective, the domestic implementation of the integrative approach of the Natura 2000 network of conservation sites (for habitats and species conservation) proved to be a lengthy and politically controversial process. The transposition into national law and the establishment of the network of Natura 2000 sites were often substantially delayed or misdirected, which triggered corrective enforcement actions through EU institutions in line with the legal provisions. In many EU member states, Natura 2000 management plans are typically worded rather vaguely or remain non-mandatory for the majority of forest owners (Winter et al. 2014). Effective management of Natura 2000 sites in forests is often compromised when no funding or only limited financial support for Natura 2000 is made available for example from the EU Rural Development Policy (Geitzenauer et al. 2016), or when Natura 2000 harmful forestry practices are financially supported from EU Common Agricultural/Rural Development Policy and EU Bioenergy Policy (Sotirov 2017) or when nature conservation objectives threaten to contradict economic objectives of forestry practices (Weiss et al. 2017b; Winkel et al. 2015). It was the dissatisfaction with the continued degradation of the ecological status of habitats and species under the EU Nature Directives that led the EU institutions, Member States and advocacy groups to push for the EU Nature Restoration Regulation: with the aim to restore all what has been degraded so far.