EU strikes landmark deal on law to restore and protect nature
Legislation will set targets to restore 20% of EU land and seas by 2030, and 90% of degraded habitats by 2050
EU lawmakers and member states have struck a deal on a landmark law to protect nature after watering down rules that critics argued would trouble farmers.
The nature restoration law, a hotly contested pillar of the European green deal, will force EU countries to restore at least 20% of the bloc’s land and seas by the end of the decade. It contains binding targets to restore at least 30% of degraded habitats by then, rising to 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050.
“We are faced with an increasingly dramatic reality: the EU’s nature and biodiversity are in danger and need to be protected,” said the Spanish environment minister, Teresa Ribera.
Politicians have fiercely contested the provisions in the law amid a simmering backlash to green policies across the continent. Opposition from the European People’s party (EPP), the centre-right group to which European Commission president and green deal champion, Ursula von der Leyen, belongs, nearly threw out the bill in a vote in July.
Environmental campaigners offered tepid support for the deal struck between the European Council, which represents the member states, and the parliament.
The EPP, the biggest political group in the parliament, said it was pleased other groups had moved towards its position. The group secured several carveouts for farmers, including an “emergency brake” to freeze environmental targets if food production is threatened.
“We welcome the fact that the final text on this law has little to do with the original proposal from the commission,” said Christine Schneider, a German MEP who negotiated for the group. “The commission’s proposal was ideologically driven, practically infeasible and a disaster for farmers, forest owners, fishermen and local and regional authorities, especially in densely populated areas.”
Nature is dying faster than ever before in recorded human history with devastating consequences for people and the planet, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found in its review of the scientific research in 2019. In Europe, where more than 80% of habitats are in poor shape, the nature restoration law was proposed in a bid to reverse this trend and stop the planet heating.
The EU is also bound by global commitments. World leaders promised to protect 30% of the planet by 2030 at a biodiversity summit in Montreal last year. Today, just 17% of the world’s land and 10% of its seas are under protection.
Josef Settele, an entomologist with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and former IPBES co-chair, said negotiations over the law were an important step forward “but the restoration of ecosystems on 20% of the area still falls short of the 30% target agreed by the global community.” He added that he saw “the sword of Damocles” in the provision giving farmers an emergency brake if food security is threatened. “This shows that it is still not common knowledge that nature restoration can improve food production in the context of a transformation of the agricultural system.”
Protecting nature is a cheap way of keeping people safe from violent weather and a key tool to cut planetheating pollution. The European Commission estimates that every euro invested in restoring land would offer a return of between 8 and 38 euro.
The law must now be adopted formally by the parliament and council before member states have to come up with national action plans to protect their habitats.
“Nature doesn’t read political texts, it will respond to what we do,” said Guy Pe’er, a biologist at the Helmholtz Centre for EnvironmentalResearch and lead author of the letter. “If we fail on nature, we fail our future.”