Natura 2000

The Habitat Directive requires Member States to implement surveillance of the conservation status of habitats and species of Community Interest. The aim of this handbook is to outline the methodological instruments for the implementation of a monitoring program of the Italian habitat types, as required by art. 17 of the Habitats Directive, with particular regard to the data collection at site level. The European guidelines (Evans & Arvela, 2011. Assessment and reporting under Article 17 of the Habitats Directive - Explanatory Notes & Guidelines for the period 2007-2012 -Final Draft. European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity, p. 1-123) require the assessments to be carried out by compiling information on specific parameters and at biogeographical scale. Each parameter is considered separately, eventually combining all parameters in an evaluation matrix thus providing the overall assessment. For each habitat type several parameters have to be considered: “Area”, “Range”, “Structure and Functions”, “Future Prospects”. While “Range” and “Future prospects” need to be assessed only at the biogeographical scale, “Area” and “Structure and functions” can be assessed aggregating data collected at the site level; in this handbook, for each habitat of community interest present in Italy, we present monitoring forms for these two parameters. Altogheter, the handbook contains 124 forms, referring to 10 Coastal and Halophytic Habitats; 11 Coastal Sand Dunes and Continental Dunes, 15 Freshwater Habitats, 5 Temperate Heath and Scrub, 11 Sclerophyllous Scrub (matorral), 15 Natural and Semi-natural Grassland Formations, 8 Raised Bogs and Mires and Fens, 10 Rocky Habitats and Caves, 39 Forests. Each monitoring form has been produced with the support of leading national experts and sent to regional authorities for a review. The monitoring forms report the most effective available monitoring techniques for collecting the required parameters and variables, and define operational guidance for data collection.  The monitoring forms describe priority variables (e.g. vegetation-plot based analysis) that need to be collected for complying with the Habitat Directive, and also indicate some optional or habitatspecific variables (e.g. substrate condition, water quality, etc.). The activities and methods suggested in this Manual are aimed at enabling the Regions and Autonomous Provinces to implement monitoring activities based on the collection of harmonized data by means of standardized technical protocols. A standardized basis of information is indeed essential for producing comparable data and generating reliable assessments on the conservation status of each habitat type at national level. Some important elements, such as the Favourable Reference Values and optimal thresholds for some of the parameters, are still under discussion at the European level and therefore will need to be further clarified in the near future

This paper analyses Natura 2000 as a shifting configuration of different approaches to nature conservation and discusses the consequences of these shifts for the roles of the stakeholders affected by this policy. Natura 2000 started with a technocratic approach that privileged conservation experts and marginalised socio-economic stakeholders. Over time, this approach has been complemented with participatory and economic approaches that offered scope for the inclusion of land users and business actors. However, the analysis also shows that the selective inclusion of economic values and stakeholders in the Natura 2000 framework risks marginalising other important socio-environmental actors.

RINGKASAN Belimbing manis (Averrhoa carambola L.) merupakan salah satu komoditas pangan yang mudah rusak (perishable) sehingga fleksibelitasnya dipasaran menjadi terbatas. Sifat perishable ini muncul karena sebagian besar komoditas buah-buahan memiliki kadar air yang tinggi yaitu sekitar 80-95%. Selain itu, sebagai bahan hidup belimbing masih tetap melakukan reaksi metabolik berupa respirasi, transpirasi, produksi etilen, dan lain sebagainya walaupun sudah terpisah dari tanaman induknya. Sifat fisiologis inilah yang akan mempengaruhi kualitas atau mutu buah belimbing. Oleh karena itu perlu adanya penanganan yang khusus agar kualitas buah belimbing tetap segar setelah dipanen. Beberapa penelitian telah dilakukan agar kualitas buah belimbing tetap terjaga kesegarannya dan menghasilkan mutu buah yang berbeda-beda. Maghfiroh (2011) dalam skripsinya menggunakan suhu rendah untuk menekan laju respirasi namun tetap memperhatikan gejala chilling injury yang muncul. Sedangkan Rohaeti dkk. (2010) dalam jurnalnya menggunakan Vapor Heat Temperature dan suhu penyimpanan untuk menurunkan laju repirasi, efek chilling injury, susut bobot buah, kadar air dan mempertahankan TPT (Total Padatan Terlarut) pada buah belimbing. Berbeda dengan Trinuarsih dkk. (2013) dalam jurnalnya yang membahas tentang kombinasi perlakuan HWT dan perendaman CaCl 2 dalam mempertahankan mutu buah berbentuk bintang ini.

The importance of taking into account ecosystems, plant communities and habitats for the development of biodiversity conservation strategies is increasingly acknowledged. Recently, the first ever European Red List of Habitats was produced, which provided an evaluation of the extinction risk of EUNIS-based natural and semi-natural habitats in Europe. As assessment unit, it used the habitat intended as a plant community, thus representing a landmark for the role of vegetation science in nature conservation. In the present paper, the results of the European Red List of Habitats are analyzed at the national scale with specific reference to the terrestrial and freshwater habitat types occurring in Italy. More than three-quarters of the assessed European habitat types were recognized for the Italian territory. The distribution of the threat categories reflects approximately the situation at the EU28 level. About 35% of the assessed habitat types are referred to a threat category; no critically endangered habitat is present in Italy. The most frequently used criteria are those related to a reduction in quantity. Some critical issues arising from the analyses are discussed. In particular, the presence of knowledge gaps is pointed out, with remarkable reference to the poor availability of spatial and quantitative data, severely affecting the application of the criteria adopted for the assessment. Descriptions of habitat types from Italy are reported, some of which are representative, emblematic or even exclusive to the Italian territory. The outcomes of the analysis represent the starting point for the future development of a national-scale Red List of Habitats. Results also emphasized how habitat types with a too broad definition pose a limit to a proper evaluation of the regional biogeographic variability, often very high in Italy, with local floristic and phytocoenotic peculiarities which do not find room in the adopted European typology. This is the reason why the development of national subtypes stands as a necessary step for the development of a realistic and effective assessment at the national scale. Keywords Assessment · Biodiversity · Plant community · Risk of extinction · Threat

In this paper we reflect on the relationship between planning and law. We analyse the Dutch interpretation and implementation of the European Union Habitats and Birds Directives by investigating the practices of delineation of protected areas. These directives provide a legislative framework for the designation of protected sites as well as for decision making about social and economic activities that might have negative effects on the conservation objectives. The formal boundaries of the protected area can have legal, political, and economic consequences and are therefore the subject of much debate. Using Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, we analyse the debates concerning delineation and the potential for planning to reduce tensions and balance interests. It is argued that the irreducible differences between the economic, political, and legal perspectives, in combination with the Dutch path of a legalistic interpretation of EU directives, have produced a situation in which the role of planning is reduced and new forms of planning are hard to implement.

Turkey has an impressive richness in terms of fauna and flora. Nearly 28% of total country area of Turkey is covered by the forests. The aim of this research is to present the status, opportunities and challenges for forest biodiversity in Turkey according to EU Natura 2000 concept. This concept is a European ecological network which is occurred species and
habitats designated by the EU Member States based on legally binding legislation. The importance of directives is emerging by designation of their special conservation areas under Natura 2000 sites. Designation of sites under those Directives takes some processes. SACs designed as sites to protect EU importance plants, animals and wildlife habitats which are assessed by the Habitats Directive. SPAs are sites
of conservation value for rare and threatened European bird species which are designated under the Birds Directive. The species richness and habitat diversity of Turkey's forestry is a challenge for both
Turkey and EU. Turkey includes species belonging to three different floristic regions. This opportunity is not common among EU countries. The forest types of Turkey have more structured importance according to diverse vulnerable species and biogeographically distribution of habitats than European countries. It should be thought that the number of Europe's forest habitat types could be considerably increase with Turkey's forest types. Before the selecting, designing and managing, the Natura 2000 sites in Turkey are needed some research to supply the assessment criteria for national assessment of species and habitats. The existing protected areas of Turkey and important endemic plant areas are available as potential Natura 2000 sites at national level. One of the most important deficiencies is lying in the inadequacy of data that will not supply some criteria to select and design the Special Areas for Conservation at European level.

In agroecosystems, the evaluation of biodiversity is extremely important given its relation with their sustainability, however it is a difficult and expensive task. The use of the higher taxa surrogacy has been proposed as an effective and less expensive way to assess biodiversity, but is still being used mainly in natural, more stable, ecosystems. In this study, we tested the use of the higher taxa surrogacy approach for spiders in pear orchards, under different production systems, in the “Oeste” region of Portugal. Spiders were chosen for this case study, since they are important predators, acting as biological control agents in agroecosystems. We concluded that genus can be used as a higher taxa surrogate of species richness with a good accuracy.

We propose a method for the appropriate assessment of adverse effects of roads in compliance with the European Union Habitats Directive. The method incorporates an analysis of ecological risk of edge effects by the proposed roads with the related increase in accessibility. The method was tested on 30 km of planned forest roads inside an 8,000-ha reserve included in two Natura 2000 sites. As a result, the cumulative effect of 19 road segments was judged as not significantly affecting the integrity of the sites, although they made accessible an extra 314 ha. On the basis of the accessibility calculation, 20 ha of land were set aside from forest exploitation as a mandatory mitigation measure. The method objectively determined the cumulative adverse effects, enabled comparison of plan revisions and alternatives and proved to measure direct and indirect significant effects with a realistic effort in terms of field survey and geographic information system processing.

The presentation of the historical and recent distribution of Myricaria germanica in Austria is based upon an evaluation of historic and current literature, floristic databases and public herbaria complemented by authors’ surveys. The illustration follows the grid of the Austrian floristic mapping. The distribution map underlines historically frequent and widespread occurrences as well as a massive decline of the species in the last 150 years. Nowadays indigenous Myricaria germanica can be described as extinct in the provinces of Vorarlberg, Salzburg, Upper and Lower Austria and Vienna; in Styria and Carinthia indigenous occurrences are limited to a few, largely over-aged single individuals. Notable primary populations exist today only in Tyrol and there focused along the rivers Lech and Isel and their tributaries. Thus Tyrol owns a high responsibility for Myricaria germanica and to ensure a  avourable conservation status of their habitats of community interest.

Effectively using the space provided for political mobilization by the legalization of associations and the rise of public concern on environmental damage, environmental groups
were among the main drivers of democratic transition in Hungary in the 1980s. However, the socio-economic problems caused by transition have quickly eclipsed the importance
laid on environmental policy. Over the years, environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) have reacted with a number of different strategies. These extend from party
formation, lobbying, and partnership with public authorities to acting as ‘watchdogs’ of the state. Focusing on these representational and participatory strategies of Hungarian ENGOs,the present article shows that the different roles played by ENGOs complement each other and that change in opportunity structures—including those provided through the process of European integration—determine choices in their repertoires of action.

Human-induced land-use changes have shaped landscapes and modeled structures and functions of ecosystems, to the extent that they are regarded as the main driver of alteration of ecosystem services (ES), that is those services provided by  nature which contribute to human well-being. Resulting in one or more services being favored over the others, land-use changes usually entail a trade-off between ES. Hence spatial planning, with its ex-ante spatial allocation of land uses, can
play a key role in preserving healthy ecosystems and ensuring a balanced trade-off between ES. By building upon Mascarenhas et al. (2015), this article will examine the extent to which ES are being taken into account in Strategic Environmental Assessment of spatial plans taking Sardinia as a case study.

The implementation of Natura 2000 has met with considerable resistance from farmers, fishermen, foresters and other local residents in most EU Member States. In response to the rural protest, the majority of governments have gradually abandoned their centralist, top-down approach and increasingly switched over to methods of participatory and interactive policy making. However, this ‘democratisation’ of European nature conservation policy is not without its problems and pitfalls. The inclusion of an ever-growing group of stakeholders with different and often diverging interests, ideas, views and values will more often than not lead to conflicts over the future of nature and the landscape. The causes and consequences of these conflicts need to be examined in order to improve the policy process.

Per quanto riguarda i sistemi fluviali e lacustri, ritenuti elementi di connessione delle aree core (e quindi tra
SIC, ZPS e altre aree protette) e fondamentali stepping stones nella rete ecologica, lo stato di conoscenza
degli habitat da preservare e l‘analisi diacronica delle loro caratteristiche quali-quantitative non può
prescindere da un appropriata conoscenza della loro complessità.

Many EU Member States are using management plans to ensure the sustainable conservation and management of Natura 2000 sites. The decision about whether to use management plans lies with the Member States. Although management planning systems differ, in most countries the management plan is developed at local level in close consultation with relevant stakeholders. This article explores to what extent national decisions on the management planning system have influenced the content of the local plans. The comparison of French and Dutch Natura 2000 management plans shows that the plans mostly propose conservation measures that can be implemented by individual owners or users of the site and for which funding is available. The individual measures in the French plans reflect the national decision that the management plans should work primarily as a funding tool. The individual measures in the Dutch plans however do not reflect the national decision that management plans should act as a legislative tool to regulate land use activities in and around the site. In the Netherlands, the focus has shifted towards a tool for the coordination of funding. The analysis shows that in both countries the selection of particular measures in the management plans is connected to other policies and funding mechanisms that deal with the problems perceived by involved actors, such as the Common Agricultural Policy and the Dutch National Program for Nitrogen Deposition.

Per valutare l’impatto che le attività agricole possono potenzialmente avere nei confronti delle specie e degli habitat sono stati applicati una serie di indici per individuare le situazioni di emergenza ove è necessario agire rapidamente
per evitare l’impoverimento o l’estinzione di specie e habitat.

Integrating ecosystem services (ES) into the management of protected areas, such as European Natura 2000 sites, can improve biodiversity conservation and human well-being; yet, the assessment and application of ES remains challenging. In this study, we propose a roadmap to guide managers in the assessment of ES at multiple levels, including a non-monetary valuation in qualitative and quantitative terms, as well as a monetary valuation, and suggesting the appropriate applications related to ES mapping, communication and planning. The roadmap proceeds through four steps and along a gradient of accuracy and effort required in the assessment methods, with different levels of spatial scale, to effectively support managers. Together with the description of the roadmap, this paper provides insights from its application to terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in Italy.

Land use changes are apparent in mainland Portugal as a consequence of important economic, social and climatic changes.
The international commitments made by Portugal, while Member State of the European Union, in the scope of the conservation of biological diversity and landscapes, demand to monitoring and assessing the changes and the key trends in the territory. Studies in this field are needed, assuming great importance in supporting management, planning and decision in territory. In this scope, in the present study, we intend to analyze the changes in landscape diversity in, mainland Portugal, and their value for Conservation, in a 37 year period. To make
possible the measurement, inherent to an assessment process, we need specific procedures and concrete values. We used land use data from the years 1970, 1990 and 2007, the occurrence of Sites of Community Importance and natural habitats of Natura 2000 Network. We used diversity indices, and developed indices for Rarity, Representativeness, Relevance and also methodologies to analyze Implicit values of land use for the conservation of natural and semi-natural habitats described by the Directive (92/43/EEC). In the analyses to the Relevance of the habitat areas of the Natura 2000 Network we used Rarity, computed for each habitat type described in the Directive and the Representativeness of their individual occurrences in the whole Network. The results indicate,
for example, that Rarity of a habitat type in Natura 2000 Network does not necessarily correlate with its priority status, suggesting the need for reevaluation of this status. The Relevance value proved to be useful in the monitoring of Natura 2000 Network. Its application allowed attributing values to the land uses, being useful in the comparison of protected areas and supporting the decision process.
The identification of the occurrence of habitats described in the Directive, was developed in the past decades, although the majority was identified in the 90s. Based on that, using geographical reference of those areas and land use data from 1990, we identifyed the proportion of each land use type classified as natural habitat area. We considered this value as the one that was implicitly given to each land use type through its classification as having importance for conservation.
The classification of habitat types in field is indicative of the presence of systems or species that we intend to protect. Thus it would be important to identify the correspondence between land use type and the type of habitat, even to the identification of suitable areas for the occurrence of these habitats. We developed that analyses and achieved highly significant correlations, however just for a pair of habitat types. This was due to the lack of detail of the habitat database. However, the methodology is developed and can be applied again, when the
database is improved.
Relatively to land use changes, we first used different Portuguese cartography (1990 and 2005), made them comparable and identified the changes and dynamics in the territory. Results showed that shrublands advanced on the territory, related with agriculture abandonment and wildfires. It was notable the loss from almost every classes to supply the
shrublands increase. Analyzing land use changes in a larger period of time we confirmed the existence and maintenance of the trends along the periods of 1970-1990 and 1990-2007. Here, we identified
spatially the changes and dynamics along the Portuguese territory.
We applied the Implicit values of land uses, computed before to the Portuguese territory. To a better understanding of the results, we considered the average Implicit value of land use in each parish. The distribution of land use in the territory and its dynamics over time
is easily interpretable and it is spatially related with the areas of notable natural values, as the protected areas. In both periods, the mean Implicit value increased in the country, as also the number of parishes with higher values for  Conservation. However, some areas loss value,
being this related with the growth of eucalyptus afforestation, agriculture and urban areas spread.
We identified 10 landscape types, through cluster analyses, considering the whole 4036 parishes of the mainland Portuguese territory, in year 2001, and the proportion of each land use type that compounds them. The landscape analyses, based on land use proportions,demonstrated to be applicable and consistent with the processes and dynamics, already
identified, such in the land use study as in other contexts, like biophysical and socio-economic over land and over time, achieving correspondence also with other international studies at the
landscape level. Results are demonstrative of: The wide occurrence of rewilding processes, mostly inland and in mountain areas; A concerning loss of tree density in the Agroforestry traditional Montados, although maintaining the area of occupancy; The contagious growth of landscapes dominated by eucalyptus afforestation, interspersed with peri-urban agriculture; and the coastal urbanization pressing.The whole set of results indicate that we should proceed with a deep reflection about this scenario, urging to decide if: i) we should start up a continuous process of landscape management and political measures for the development of inland areas, to stop the depopulation and abandonment processes, or, ii) on the contrary, we should assume a
concentration of population in existing coastal urban areas and prepare the equipment and infrastructures to contact with the naturalized areas, with all the inherent processes of wildlife, assuming like a biodiversity reserve on a large scale. In the present scenario, using diversity indices, the increasing of the values is apparent, such in the heterogeneity index, as in the average Implicit value or in the diversity index weighted with the Conservation values. The growth of the interest of the landscapes of the
Portuguese territory for Conservation is notable.

In 2003 - 2004 period, by the use of GIS technique there were delimited the five European
bioregions that occur in Romania, the respective bioregions having the following total surfaces in the initial
version of the map: Alpine bioregion (5,421,368 ha), Continental bioregion (12,781,084 ha), Pannonic bioregion
(1,436,801 ha), Pontic or Black Sea bioregion (179,858 ha) and Steppic bioregion (4,022,218 ha). The digital
formats of the resulted polygons were used in most of the activities carried out in the 2005 – 2006 period for establishing
of the Romanian sites that were proposed for inclusion into the ”Natura 2000” European network of protected areas.

L'archivio dati delle corrispondenze specie-habitat del Progetto Speciale Funghi contiene più di 100.000 segnalazioni di specie fungine assegnate ai relativi codici. Viene quin presentata l'estrazione dei dati relativi alle leccete italiane.

The setting up of the European network of protected areas (Natura 2000) is nearing completion. Alpine rivers with nearnaturalmorphology and dynamics have become rare and are highly endangered. Myricaria germanica, an endangeredindicator species of Alpine rivers, reflects riverine landscape diversity. The study is based upon an evaluation of literatureas well as upon new data. The analysis of the actual distribution of habitat 3230 Alpine rivers and their ligneous vegetationwith M. germanica identifies the river Isel and its tributaries Schwarzach, Kalserbach and Tauernbach as an importantaddition to the Natura 2000 network.