Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-21-Speech-1-104"
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"en.20070521.16.1-104"2
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".
Madam President, I would like to start by saying a few words in praise of the progress we have made in the European Union. We have banned some products, pesticides and practices; we have cleaned up our rivers and have protected some significant areas from development and the results are there to be seen. In Britain, for example, red kites and raptors are in greater numbers in our skies, otters are returning to our rivers, but as is so often the case it is one step forward and then one or two or three steps backwards, with habitat destruction continuing, with invasive alien species causing havoc, and all too often our own direct activities killing.
Sometimes we are wholly at fault, the classic example of the way in which we are denuding our seas out of sight all too often out of mind, and our policies there, as Commissioner Borg knows better than anyone, are simply unsustainable and ludicrous. Sometimes the damage is inadvertent. Changing farming practices, for example, are not intended to wipe out bird species, but that is one of the effects in some instances and we wait with interest to see whether the results in the changes to the common agricultural policy produce positive results.
Sometimes we do not know who or what is at fault, but as politicians we still avoid adopting the precautionary principle. How else do you explain the mad decision of those Member States who voted to reject the Commission’s plans for the recovery of eel stocks, numbers of which have fallen catastrophically? Short-term considerations like these mean that species are now heading too often towards extinction.
Setting a target for halting the loss of biodiversity is easy – especially when it is nine years off – it is the most easy thing in the world to find a target a long, long time off. But now that deadline is fast approaching and some hard decisions have to be taken if the target is to be reached. More than half way through their term, I think some Commissioners can start to see the end of their own positions starting to loom. I hope they will use the remaining time well. Decisions based on short-term political expediency will be quickly forgotten, but firm steps to reverse negative trends and protect species will earn them the respect of history."@en1
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