Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-20-Speech-1-144"
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"en.20100920.20.1-144"2
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"By means of this own-initiative report, the European Parliament is sounding the alarm about our biodiversity: our species richness and our ecosystems. The species extinction rate is higher than ever before: 30% of amphibians, over 40% of mammals, birds, butterflies and reptiles, and even over 50% of freshwater fish are threatened with extinction. This is, of course, unacceptable, and not just from a purely biological or ecological point of view. As I see it, we also have an ethical duty to leave the earth in such a condition that our children and grandchildren, too, are still able to enjoy it.
Finally, it is also in our economic interest to invest in biodiversity. Healthy ecosystems fix CO
provide clean water and ensure better harvests and more raw materials, among other things. The degradation of these ecosystems costs us EUR 50 billion per year worldwide, and that bill is only set to rise. We, the European Union and the Member States, have failed dismally in this field. Our objective to halt the decline in biodiversity by 2010 is a long way from being achieved.
The key question now, therefore, is how to make sure we do achieve the new objective we have set ourselves for 2020. First of all, of course, this is a matter of political will, but my report also makes a number of specific suggestions. For example, there must be an end to the parochial attitude. Nature policy and budgets are still too isolated from each other. This has to change, in the form of an integral approach. Biodiversity should form part of not only European nature policy but also other policies, such as fisheries, agriculture and regional policy. The first steps have been taken in this direction, I know, but we need to go further. The reform of the common agricultural policy, for example, offers opportunities in this regard, for instance, by providing remuneration for social services or compensating farmers for sustainable production in or near nature reserves.
My second point is that we need to create win-win situations in which economy and ecology can go hand in hand: this also offers opportunities for European green jobs.
Another point is that we should ensure better cooperation between, and interconnection of, Natura 2000 sites. A cross-border approach is mostly lacking at present, even though animals and plants pay no heed whatsoever to national borders. In addition, we call on the Commission to show more leadership and provide more clarity. After all, the differences between Member States when it comes to implementing Natura 2000, for example, are very great.
All in all, we support the European Commission’s proposals and ambition when it comes to halting the decline in biodiversity by 2020; indeed, that is an absolute minimum level of ambition. Yet our ambition should also include the restoration of biodiversity. In addition, of course, attention to biodiversity at international level needs to be increased. To this end, Europe needs to speak out loud and clear and with one voice at next month’s Nagoya conference.
When it comes to new plans, impact assessments are very important, in terms of both the ecological and the socio-economic effects – and not as a delay tactic, not as an excuse, but in order to provide clarity.
Finally, we also call for new policy from the European Commission, for example, on invasive alien species. After all, the protection of one species may require active management of another. Without action to tackle the grey squirrel, there is little prospect for the native red squirrel in the United Kingdom. Also, the release of thousands of wild hamsters in South Limburg has proved to have little effect when a single fox can eat three hundred in a year. In short, ambition and realism are what are expected of us in the next few years.
I should like to conclude by thanking the shadow rapporteurs for the constructive cooperation that resulted in the unanimous adoption of this report in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, and also by thanking Commissioner Potočnik, who cannot be here today as he is in New York, on biodiversity business. I trust, however, that Commissioner De Gucht, who has even been able to listen to this speech in his mother tongue, will repeat it faithfully to his colleague."@en1
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