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Can EU halt animal and plant extinction?[fr][de]

Published: Tuesday 30 May 2006 | Updated: Friday 29 June 2007

A series of conferences organised in Brussels this week will look at how the EU - and the rest of the world - can meet its target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010.

Background:

The EU Commission on 22 May unveiled a new Action Plan on biodiversity, the fifth of its kind since a 2001 summit of European heads of states agreed to halt biodiversity loss in the EU by the end of the decade (EurActiv 23 May 2006).

Four biodiversity action plans have already been adopted in 2001 under a wider EU biodiversity strategy agreed in 1998. The four action plans relate to: 1) conservation of natural resources , 2) agriculture , 3) fisheries , and 4) economic and development cooperation outside Europe.

The protection of nature and biodiversity is one of the four priorities of the EU's Sixth Environmental Action Programme covering the period 2002-2012 (see EurActiv LinksDossier on the 6EAP).

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Positions:

For the Commission, which has placed growth and jobs at the top of its political agenda, the challenge is to find the right balance between boosting the EU's sluggish economy while reducing the negative impacts of growth.

It has even tried to put a price tag on the economic benefits brought about by "ecosystem goods and services" such as the air we breathe, water, food production, or the regulation of the earth's climate. The Commission estimates these "goods and services" at around €26 trillion per year globally, or "more than twice the value of what humans produce each year".

"These services underpin EU growth, jobs and well being", it argues.

But environmental organisations like the WWF and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) say the Barroso Commission has placed environmental protection on the backseat of its policy objectives. Less than two years after it was nominated, they argue that there now is "ample evidence" that environmental protection has been "politically downgraded" to a side role, to the benefit of the Commission's growth and jobs objectives (EurActiv 18 May 2006).

Next steps:

Green Week runs from 30 May to 2 June [see programme ]
Over the next days, EurActiv will provide coverage of the key debates in the conference