DIRECTORATE-GENERALENVIRONMENT
Directorate B - Nature
ENV.B.2- Biodiversity
ENV.B.3 - Natura 2000
CGBN
Co-ordination Group
for Biodiversity and Nature
7thmeeting –02/03/10
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Agenda item 4.D
Green Infrastructure
(DOC.4.D-1)
State of Play
What is Green Infrastructure good for?
Green Infrastructure should build on already implemented nature and biodiversity conservation approaches, such as the combination of species-oriented and multifunctional habitat networks, the integration of nature conservation into land use practices and measures to reduce barrier effects. This is not only necessary if we are to halt the loss of biodiversity across Europe, but it will also contribute to achieving a wider range of goals, including adaptation to climate change and the maintenance of ecosystem services such as clean water, productive soils and attractive recreational areas. Green infrastructure provides essential elementsfor healthy ecosystems.
Added value of Green Infrastructure however comes through its multifunctional use for greening transport, strengthening the functionality of ecosystems for delivering goods and services and for mitigating and adapting to climate change effects, for acting as barriers against erosion, and for enhancing the quality of life (health, tourism, conserving historic and cultural heritage). Green Infrastructure consists therefore of natural and man-made, rural and urban elements. It encompasses ecological networks, and includes elements such as green bridges, floodplain restoration and flood-retention facilities which demonstrate the advantages of nature-based solutions to purely technical ones, or innovative planning approaches for intelligent, multi-purpose land use. They often ensure efficient and sustainable use of land by integrating interacting functions or activities on the same piece of land. Such structures need to be integrated in decisions on land use planning.
The financial perspective: Why investing in Green Infrastructure?
Green Infrastructure can make economic sense –investing in nature's assets pays off: It offers the possibility to invest in cost-effective opportunities for climate mitigation and adaptation. Biodiversity provides many of the same services as man-made technological solutions, often at significant lower costs (such as flood risk mitigation schemes).
Green Infrastructure in EU context
The main pressures Green Infrastructure could help to mitigate are particularly pronounced in Europe: Fragmentation, land use pressures due to high population density, land cover changes such as intensification of land, decreased permeability of land. Therefore, EU has a special responsibility in addressing these pressures on biodiversity – biodiversity conservation measures in protected areas, such as the Natura 2000 network, need to be stepped up with measures to strengthen and restore ecosystems on the rest of EU's territory, if they are to be successful (cf. Art. 17 HD report).
The Communication on an EU vision and target for biodiversity beyond 2010 has been adopted on January 19th in Strasbourg. The Commission will develop a strategy on how to tackle biodiversity loss in the future. Integral part of the evaluation of policy gaps herein is the conclusion of a need for developing a Green Infrastructure strategy. Activities foreseen for 2010, presented below, should give input to such a process.
What has been done?
DG ENV is already promoting and supporting exchanges of best practice as a basis for an EU strategy on green infrastructure to be developed after 2010. DG ENV has issued a service contract, addressing the wider issue of green infrastructures for the integration of Natura 2000 network into broader countryside, in 2009. It has delivered results on land use patterns inside and outside Natura 2000 areas when exploring the boundary conditions for connectivity. The contractor has undertaken an assessment of the trends in land use changes in the EU, including a comparison of land use trends with trends in related socio-economic factors, which will allow forecasting of land use intensity in all regions of the EU. The study lists proposals how to integrate the Green Infrastructure concept into other policy sectors than biodiversity.
Requirements of the Habitats Directive to guarantee the ecological coherence of the Natura 2000 network have not led to many actions of Member States so far. The Commission committed to better integrate Natura 2000 – as cornerstone of any Green Infrastructure strategy – into the wider countryside. Calls for developing Green Infrastructure have been formulated in the White Paper on Adaptation to Climate Change and its follow-up, as well as in the TEEB process.
DG ENV has communicated with interest groups, stakeholders, international bodies, national and regional authorities on Green Infrastructure. On 25-26/03/09, the Commission organised an expert workshop on green infrastructures in Brussels. The goal was to explore the challenges of achieving an ecologically coherent green infrastructure, assess how the European Commission could assist with the process, and to spotlight successful Community initiatives in this field.
DG ENV has assessed and will further assess the experiences Member States have made when implementing green infrastructure and ecological networks on their territories and facilitate the exchange of knowledge on best practice examples. A Natura 2000 newsletter, issued in 12/09 is dedicated to the promotion of Green Infrastructure.
Future steps
Priority 1: making the concept operational
There is a need for a common understanding of the concept of green infrastructure. Experience has shown that if different policy sectors, industries and private land owners can see the benefits to them of developing common goals and combining certain land uses with the maintenance of functional biodiverse ecosystems – for instance through the identification of multi-functional zones – then the prospects of building an effective green infrastructure across Europe would increase substantially. In 2010, DG ENV furthermore intends to organise an informative workshop on the efficiency of Green Infrastructure – to gather and distribute information on the monitoring of implemented structures, and to learn from the lessons taken on the ground.
Priority 2: making the concept integration-compatible
Key for successfully implement Green Infrastructure will be the integration into other policies than biodiversity: into agriculture and forestry, regional and land use policy, transport, energy, urban-rural and spatial planning, research and climate change policy. It needs to take use of instruments such as the CAP, rural development, cohesion funds and Strategic and Environmental impact assessments.
The implementation of Green Infrastructure will need to be done using a multi-scale approach (national, regional and local responsibility) in coherence with an overall European framework, promoting and moderating communication and expert knowledge, and financing the implementation of Green Infrastructure. Currently, a publication on the experiences made with LIFE-financed projects contributing to Green Infrastructure, is in preparation. During Green Week, Green Infrastructure will have a dedicated session.
Priority 3: developing a coherent approach to spatial planning
One of the most effective ways to achieve Green Infrastructure is through spatial planning. A spatial planning approach enables the spatial interactions of different policies to be investigated over a large enough geographical area (e.g. region or municipality). It also brings together different policy sectors in order to decide on land use priorities in an integrated and cooperative way. As such, it is an efficient tool for guiding future developments and policy interventions in a sustainable and intelligent manner at a very strategic level. Aim on European scale, whilst fully respecting the subsidiarity approach, should be to maximise the use of existing spatial planning tools for the planning and integration of Green Infrastructure, e.g. within the forthcoming review of EIA/SEA, and through the Maritime spatial planning initiative. DG ENV intends to organise a seminar on the implementation of Green infrastructure and its links to spatial planning in 2010.
Priority 4: explore funding possibilities
International work to put an accurate price on ecosystem goods and services, as the results would encourage faster construction of green infrastructure, is in progress. The work done in TEEB is crucial for assessing the economic consequences of ecosystems failing to deliver their services, and to show the benefits ecosystems deliver to society.
Funding sources for Green Infrastructure need to be identified, such as CAP, RDF, structural and cohesion funding, research, LIFE+, or funding schemes by EIB and EBRD. Green Infrastructure could also lead to new partnerships, with banks and finance operators, as they might realise that investing in green infrastructure could bring benefits in mid- and long-term perspectives ("fundability and bankability").DG ENV will also organise a seminar on financing biodiversity in 2010.
Priority 5: the international agenda
What regards international efforts to build up Green Infrastructure and therein embedded ecological networks, work of the CBD has been crucial. The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, at its seventh meeting in 2004, adopted the programme of work on protected areas with an overall objective to establish and maintain, by 2010 for terrestrial areas and by 2012 for marine areas, “comprehensive, effectively managed and ecologically representative systems of protected areas” that, collectively, will significantly reduce the rate of loss of global biodiversity. By 2015 the CBD target is that all protected areas and protected area systems shall be integrated into the wider land- and seascape, and relevant sectors, by applying the ecosystem approach and taking into account ecological connectivity and the concept, where appropriate, of ecological networks. Green Infrastructure work will feed in the process for preparation of COP 10 in Nagoya in October 2010 and beyond.
Further information:
More information is available in the Natura 2000 newsletter of 12/09 (on DG ENV's web site): and dedicated section on
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