CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURA 2000 – CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Antonia Chilikova
Climate change is real, happening now and for sure will affect everyone, everywhere and most of all will cause enormous damage to the environment. Therefore, protection of the environment is one of the major challenges facing Europe. Since the implications of climate change are unpredictable it is clear that we need a coherent network of protected areas, to enforce the resilience of global biodiversity and to welcome the inevitable evolution of ecosystems and the change in species distribution. In order to protect biodiversity and avoid the extinction of animal and plant species, the European Union has created a vast network of protected sites: the NATURA 2000 (N2K) network of protected areas that helps managing protected sites within a changing climate and also contributes to the sustainable local development. The UK Government is also fully committed to carrying out its legal obligations to implement the EC Habitats and Wild Birds Directives and, as part of that process, to contribute to the Natura 2000 development. The success of this concept is based on the collaborative approach involving all stakeholders including governments, their agencies and local practitioners.
As EU member and one of the European countries with the greatest biodiversity, Bulgaria had to designate its own protected territories to the network. In order to speed up the delaying process of establishing the N2K in Bulgaria, the Biological Diversity Act (BDA) was revised and the public consultation element was almost lost. This brewed nothing but hostility amongst the people in the designated regions and above all among the affected landowners and construction entrepreneurs. The lack of information and public awareness created serious social conflicts in many regions and threatened the success of the network in Bulgaria.
Guided by its mission and taking into account the UK's International priorities: mitigating the climate change and ‘promoting sustainable development, poverty reduction [...]and protection of the environment’ (FCO Strategy, Priority 7), the Association of the Bulgarian Chevening Scholars (ABCS) organised in June, 2007 a conference about the problems concerning the N2K and the related issue of the global warming. The main goal of this conference was to inform the main stakeholders about the opportunities and benefits of the network such as direct and indirect investment into N2K sites and to stimulate a constructive dialogue amongst stakeholders and nature conservation NGOs involved in the process. The organized conference aimed also to fill a substantial gap in the public awareness about the principles, rules and benefits of the N2K, and to contribute towards decreasing the social tension. During the conference a number of positive practices and experiences from UK and other countries were presented, showing how N2K zones can boost the sustainable economic development rather than stop it.
