Green Week: Fighting biodiversity loss will fail unless local and regional level is more widely implicated

This year's Green Week is focusing on halting biodiversity loss, but the Committee of the Regions has warned that European and international efforts will continue to fail unless more is done to involve local and regional authorities in both the creation and implementation of policy.

Speaking after chairing a side event at Green Week on 2 June, the CoR's rapporteur on the future of biodiversity policy Linda Gillham (UK/EA), member of Runneymede Borough Council, said: “It is certainly true that halting biodiversity loss is a challenge for the entire planet, but both international and European efforts have been less than successful. In Europe, for example, just 17% of species classified as in need of protection are in fact protected, because although there is legislation in place – the Habitats Directive – it is often poorly implemented, and local and regional authorities need more support to ensure that they have the funds and the expertise to meet the directive's goals. At international level, meanwhile, the failure to halt biodiversity loss can be put down in part to the lack of coordination between different levels of government, with local and regional authorities in particular often left out when it comes to creating rules that they will eventually have to implement.

”But it is also at the local level that efforts to protect habitats and species are successfully taking place. Who better, then, to contribute to the global strategy on biodiversity than the local and regional authorities who are faced with tackling the issue on a daily basis?“

In her draft opinion on European biodiversity policy, Cllr Gillham calls for wider recognition of the role of local and regional authorities in tackling biodiversity loss, and for the new EU  biodiversity strategy post-2010 to include greater coordination between iEuropean, national and local levels. She also points out that EU funding for local and regional authorities in this field is often underused.

Cllr Gillham's draft opinion echoes the United Nations' call for local actors to get more involved. ”I welcome the calls from the United Nations for local and regional levels of government to take part in the COP10 meeting in Nagoya, Japan, next October – the 10th meeting of the signatories of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity – at which a new declaration on fighting biodiversity loss is expected to be signed, and which, I hope, will explicitly recognise their role.

“It would also be a strong signal on the part of the EU if a representation from the CoR were to attend COP10 as part of the EU delegation – as was the case for the COP15 on climate change in Copenhagen last year – and I am pleased that the UN representation in Brussels has given us its support in this endeavour.”

Cllr Gillham's draft opinion is due to be adopted at next week's CoR Plenary Session on 9 June.