1. EU biodiversity strategy to 2020 - Target 1
Habitats Committee,

2. Brussels,
COM(2011) 244 final
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
Our life insurance, our natural capital: an EU biodiversity strategy to 2020

3. In a few words...
2050 vision
Biodiversity & ecosystem services protected, valued and appropriately restored
2020 headline target
Halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020

4. The six targets FULLY IMPLEMENT THE BIRDS AND HABITATS DIRECTIVES
MAINTAIN AND RESTORE ECOSYSTEMS AND THEIR SERVICES
INCREASE THE CONTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY TO MAINTAINING AND ENHANCING BIODIVERSITY
ENSURE THE SUSTAINABLE USE OF FISHERIES RESOURCES
COMBAT INVASIVE ALIEN SPECIES
HELP AVERT GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY LOSS

5. TARGET 1: FULLY IMPLEMENT THE BIRDS AND HABITATS DIRECTIVES
To halt the deterioration in the status of all species and habitats covered by EU nature legislation and achieve a significant and measurable improvement in their status so that, by 2020, compared to current assessments:
100% more habitat assessments and 50% more species assessments under the Habitats Directive show a favourable or improved conservation status; and
50% more species assessments under the Birds Directive show a secure or improved status.

6. So what does target 1 really mean?
For habitats: 34% of conservation status assessments (EU-biogeographical level) are favourable or show evidence of improvement by 2020 (now 17% favourable)
For species: 26% of conservation status assessments (EU-biogeographical level) are favourable or show evidence of improvement by 2020 (now 17% favourable)
Based on feasibility calculations
For Birds: 80% of bird species assessments are either secure or improving by 2020 (now 52% secure)

7. The Habitats Directive target
based on the first conservation status assessment (Art.17 reporting) on biogeographic level conducted between 2007 (national reports) & 2009 (EU composite report).
it revealed that only 17% of the biogeographic assessments for both habitats and species showed favourable conservation status.
Next assessments (6-year cycle):

8. The Birds Directive target
is based on the analysis of conservation status prepared by Birdlife International in Their analysis of each species refers to the extinction risk and the determination of species of European conservation concern (SPECs).
The 2004 assessment concluded that 52% of species are secure
Next assessment:
2014

9. Theoretical example for species
4% improved from red to amber
7% improved from amber to green
28% favourable or improving – target reached
SPECIES
Favourable status
Inadequate status
Bad status
Unknown*
2007
17%
30%
22%
31%
2020
24%
27%
18%
(31%)

10. Feasibility calculation
Calculations carried our by EEA and ETC/BD
Assumption: some parameters will potentially will improve quicker than others if adequate conservation management are taken:
Species: habitat area, population and future prospects
Habitats: future prospects, structure & functions
Range unlikely to change significantly over 10 years.
Cases where the overall assessment could be improved by only changing one or two parameter to the better were considered more likely than those which would need several parameters to change.
The analysis used 2240 assessments for species and 701 assessments for habitats at biogeographical level.

11. Follow up of target and further work, e. g
Follow up of target and further work, e.g. breakdown of target into biogeographical regions potentially follwed up by the Expert Group on Reporting
We can do it!