The European Commission has adopted the new EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and an associated Action Plan (annex) – a comprehensive, ambitious, long-term plan for protecting nature and reversing the degradation of ecosystems.
It aims to put Europe’s biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030 with benefits for people, the climate and the planet. It is also the proposal for the EU contribution to the upcoming international negotiations on the global post-2020 biodiversity framework.
In the post-COVID context, the Biodiversity Strategy aims to build our societies’ resilience to future threats such as climate change impacts, forest fires, food insecurity or disease outbreaks, including by protecting wildlife and fighting illegal wildlife trade.
A core part of the European Green Deal, the Biodiversity Strategy will also support a green recovery following the pandemic.
Main elements of the Strategy for 2030
The Strategy contains specific commitments and actions to be delivered by 2030, including:
- Establishing a larger EU-wide network of protected areas on land and at sea, building upon existing Natura 2000 areas, with strict protection for areas of very high biodiversity and climate value.
- An EU Nature Restoration Plan – a series of concrete commitments and actions to restore degraded ecosystems across the EU by 2030, and manage them sustainably, addressing the key drivers of biodiversity loss.
- A set of measures to enable the necessary transformative change: setting in motion a new, strengthened governance framework to ensure better implementation and track progress, improving knowledge, financing and investments and better respecting nature in public and business decision-making.
- Measures to tackle the global biodiversity challenge, demonstrating that the EU is ready to lead by example towards the successful adoption of an ambitious global biodiversity framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
