What is Natura 2000?
Natura 2000 is the centrepiece of EU nature & biodiversity policy. It is an EU wide network of nature protection areas established under the Habitats Directive (92/43/CEE).
The aim of the network is to assure the long-term survival of Europe’s most valuable and threatened species and habitats.
As task , the network has to conduct a census of the natural environments and species in need of protection and it has to define the methods for their safeguard through a planning assigned to every single Member State.
Key objectives:
Natura 2000 aims to achieve the objectives established by the Convention on biological diversity, signed by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and approved by Italy on the 12th of February 1994.
The project intends to:
-Go beyond national borders in order to generate a coherent and coordinated biodiversity safeguard in the whole EU territory;
-Make the synergy and the balance between the preservation of nature and human activities such as traditional farming and mountain grazing, stronger and respectful towards biodiversity, which has to be an integral part of the economic and social development of the Member States;
-Work for the preservation of the whole territory ecosystemic structure, restricting the fragmentation of the habitats, which reduces the surfaces of natural environments and increases their isolation in an anthropic territorial matrix.