Communities and civil society organisations are frequently confronted with threats to their IPAs, from developments planned within them and nearby. Two key policy and legal tools are particularly useful for dealing with such threats. First, for countries that are part of the EU, or are seeking accession, such as those in the Balkans, the EU Nature Directives provide powerful safeguards for IPAs that are also (or are likely to become) Natura 2000 sites.

For other countries, such as in North Africa and the Middle East, potentially damaging projects are often part-funded by global and regional financial institutions, such as the World Bank/International Finance Corporation, the Africa Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Such institutions are increasingly adopting common standards - in the form of safeguard policies - for ensuring the projects they fund address biodiversity impacts. Both the EU Nature Directives and these safeguard policies apply what has come to be known as the ‘mitigation hierarchy', whereby impacts are first avoided (by not routing a planned road through an IPA, for example), and, where the wildlife site cannot be entirely avoided, applying impact minimisation (sometimes called mitigation) methods. In exceptional circumstances, residual impacts cannot be entirely extinguished, and some form of offsetting or compensation might be acceptable.

Plantlife will organise workshops and discussion group sessions on the Habitats Directive and mitigation hierarchy for the October workshop, where we hope to raise awareness of how communities around IPAs can use these tools. 

For futher information: Ben Mc Carthy

Photo: Plant diversity safeguards in the Balkans