High Nature Value farming and European biodiversity goals
The HNV farming concept emphasises that biodiversity conservation goals in Europe cannot be met only by protecting particular habitats or species, or designating certain areas for their management, such as Natura 2000 sites. This view has been expressed clearly by the European Commission in official communications on halting biodiversity decline1. We must also maintain the low-intensity landuses that favour the dynamics of natural processes and create opportunities for biodiversity to flourish across large, contiguous areas of land. These different approaches are entirely complementary.
Providing effective economic support to HNV farming implies a fundamental shift in the way that the CAP operates, and in the way that funds are distributed to European farming. As payments to Europe’s more productive and competitive farming are phased out after 2013, it will be important to have clearly identified the types of farming that still need public support, and are justified in receiving it.
An effective support system is urgently needed for HNV farming. Without it, the EU’s goal of halting the loss of biological diversity2 at all levels by 2010 cannot possibly be met.
1 “Natura 2000 and the conservation of threatened species will not be viable in the long-term without a wider terrestrial, freshwater and marine environment favourable to biodiversity. Key actions include: optimising the use of available measures under the reformed CAP, notably to prevent intensification or abandonment of high–nature–value farmland, woodland and forest and supporting their restoration;” COM(2006) 216 final COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION HALTING THE LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY BY 2010 — AND BEYOND Sustaining ecosystem services for human well–being.
2 The Kyiv Biodiversity Resolution, 5th Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, May 2003.
