Less than 5% of marine species and less than 10% of marine habitats protected under EU nature laws were assessed as having a ‘favourable conservation status’ in a comprehensive EU review last summer.

Even more telling, however, was the huge number of ‘unknowns’: no assessment could be completed for 57% of marine species and 40% of marine habitats, in each case more than twice the figure for land areas.

Member states are more than a decade behind schedule when it comes to designating protected marine areas under EU nature laws. Nature protection in the EU is anchored by two directives: the 1979 birds directive and the 1992 habitats directive. Together, these create the Natura 2000 network of protected areas. Nearly one-fifth of the EU’s land area is protected in this way, but less than one-tenth of its marine area.

On land, the problem is largely that protected sites are badly looked after. The problem at sea is designating such sites and assessing the state of habitats and species within them.

In 2008, world governments agreed to set up a global network of protected marine sites by 2012 under the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD). Within the EU, governments are also to ensure the ‘good environmental status’ of European waters by 2020.

Multiple threats

Marine ecosystems today face multiple threats: agriculture’s chemical run-off, the persistence of toxic substances in water, rising sea temperatures and invasion by alien species are top of the list according to the European Environment Agency. These outside influences threaten to disrupt vital ecological and economic services, from storing carbon to supplying food, it warns in a March report on marine biodiversity.

Three problems have hindered the expansion of the EU’s Natura 2000 network to sea so far, according to the European Commission.

First, there is legal uncertainty over whether EU nature protection laws apply to offshore waters. A landmark legal ruling in the early 2000s was needed to confirm that the legislation applies to all marine areas where member states have some form of sovereign rights, for example to oil and gas exploration or fishing, not just coastal and close-to-shore waters.

A second problem has been the practical difficulty of establishing what is out there. Data collection can be costly and difficult. But non-governmental organisations such as Greenpeace and Seas at Risk reject the suggestion that this should stop designation of protected areas. According to Greenpeace’s Saskia Richartz, there is enough data to know which areas are important to protect, if not to identify exactly each habitat and species in them.

Third, there is political reluctance on the part of some member states to create protected sites, driven by economic interests in fishing, oil and gas exploration, or wind farm development.

NGOs claim that this is the key problem, while the Commission considers the lack of data the biggest obstacle. It has assisted member states in data collection by giving money for surveys through the EU’s Life+ programme.

Improvements

Efforts to protect the marine environment have intensified in the past two years. This year the EU hopes to complete the initial identification of marine protected sites under the habitats and birds directives. The original deadline was 1998. The last of a series of meetings dedicated to this under the habitats directive is scheduled for June, although Greenpeace says “insufficient” efforts by Portugal, Spain and others may yet delay the process.

Designating protected areas, however, is just the first step. Given the complexities of ocean ecosystems, difficult decisions must be made on the size and interconnection of areas before questions of management can begin to be tackled.

Detlef Sonnenberg is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.