Directive birds

The Directive 79/409/CEE (more generally called Directive Birds ) of April 2nd, 1979 is a measure taken by the European Union in order to promote the protection and the management of the populations of Espèce S of wild Oiseaux of the European territory.

This protection as well applies to the birds themselves as with their Nid S, their eggs and their habitats. By the installation of protection zones special, important for the protection and the management of the birds, the Oiseaux directive also devotes the ecological concept of Réseau, by taking account of the migratory movements birds for their protection and of the need for a transborder work.

Contents of the Directive

The Directive Birds estimates that, taking into account the threats that undergo a great number of populations of European species of wild birds, the Member States the Community must engage of measurements aiming at preserving " all species of birds naturally living in a wild state on the European territory " (article first of the directive).

For the species of birds more particularly threatened, listed with appendix I of the directive, the Member States must create protection zones special ( ZPS ). Measurements, of type contractual or lawful, must be taken by the Member States on these sites in order to make it possible to achieve the goals of conservation of the directive. These sites, with the special zones of conservation (ZSC) of the directing habitats fauna flora, form the European network Natura 2000 of protected ecological sites.

Concerning the Hunting, the directive recognizes the hunting rights on the species whose manpower, distribution and rate of reproduction allow it, " in so far as limits are established and respected (...) and that these acts of hunting '' compatible with the maintenance of the population of these species on a satisfactory level. " The list of the species authorized with hunting is given in appendix II (part 1 gives the list of the species authorized to hunting in all the union, and the part 2 those only authorized in certain countries.)

For the species of birds aimed by the Directive, are prohibited the destruction of the individuals but also of the nests, of eggs and the habitats, the sale and transport for the sale of live birds or died or very part obtained starting from the bird. A certain flexibility is allowed for certain species, listed with appendix III.

The directive also proposes with the Member States to encourage research at ends of management, protection and exploitation reasoned of the species of wild birds of the European territory. A list of particularly important topics is enumerated in appendix V.

In order to supervise the good transposition of the directive, it is expected that each Member State will have to provide a report/ratio of application to the European commission, every three years as from its application. The latter already had besides to continue five states (Finland, France, Greece, Ireland and Italy) not having transmitted to him this report/ratio as they were held to do it before October 1st, 1999, over the period 1996-1998.

Moreover, in order to mitigate the lack of knowledge and the evolution of the concerned biological phenomena, the directive establishes in its article a 16 committee for the adaptation of the directive to technological advance and scientist. This committee, called ORNIS, is composed representatives of the Member States and is chaired by a Commission representative.

The directive Birds through the community

In 2006, the barometer of the application of the directive birds, published in the newsletter Natura 2000, had the following results for the 25 Member States of the European Union:

The new Member States had as an obligation to indicate ZPS and to propose SIC at the date of their entry in the Union (May 1st, 2004). They subjected all their list and the evaluation is in hand.

Problems of interpretation as regards hunting

Hunting, according to the provisions and considering directive, is considered like " an acceptable exploitation " species of birds, and the directive in it even does not raise particular difficulties. No date is clearly indicated for the periods of opening or closing of hunting. She recalls only that the states must take care that " the species to which the legislation of hunting applies are not driven out for the nidicole period nor during the various stages of reproduction and dependence. When they are migrating species, they take care in particular that the species to which the legislation of hunting applies are not driven out for their period of reproduction and their way of return towards their place of nesting. "

On the other hand, the problems encountered for the implementation of the directive gradually appeared when the Court of justice of the European Communities (CJCE) gave these provisions an excessively restrictive interpretation, by introducing concepts (complete protection, confusion, disturbance…) who are not initially mentioned by the directive.

The United Kingdom

The directive birds not specifying particular criteria for the designation of the ZPS (Special SPA for Protection Areas in English), it is the Joint Natural Conservation Committee , with the support of the national agencies of conservation ( Countryside council for Wales , English Nature , Scottish Natural Heritage and Environment and Heritage Service in Northern Ireland ) and of the British government which carried out SPA Selection Guidelines for the uses in the U.K. .

The first three SPA of the United Kingdom were classified on August 31st, 1982 according to the recommendations of this methodological guide. They are the three following sites:

  • the island of in Scotland in the western south of Skye;
  • three islands of, Skokholm and Middleholm in Wales;
  • the zone of Estuary known as The Swale in the south-east of England.

About the middle of the years 1990, the British government ordered with the JNCC a review of the whole of the SPA indicated in the United Kingdom. This process of inventory led to the realization of what is commonly called SPA Review . An work group was then formed by the government, SPAR SWG ( Special Protection Aired & Ramsar Scientific Working Group ) in order to work out a development strategy of the network of SPA.

France

The application of the directive in France especially was made difficult with regard to the dates of opening and closing of hunting to the migratory birds and the birds of water, and still makes debate at present.

The network of Special Protection zones (ZPS)

Since 1988, the Court of justice of the European Communities (which is charged to interpret the European texts and to sanction their possible violation by the Member States) concluded with the failure from France to its obligations from transposition from the provisions of this directive in the French law. After having taken an alarming delay, denounced by the European commission, the French state made provisions in order to fill its delay.

Thus, at April 30th, 2006, the French network of sites Natura 2000 included/understood 367 special protection zones, against 117 in 1986, for an total surface area of 4.477.962 ha ( source: Web site Natura 2000 of the Ministry for ecology and French sustainable development).

In 18 months, France transmitted a number of file at the commission resulting in an increase in the surface of the network of + 167% to the title of the Oiseaux directive. This considerable effort makes it possible France to present, at April 30th, 2006, a coherent network taking into consideration stake of safeguard of the biodiversity of its territory, as it was firmly committed there near the European commission.

The ZPS relate to mainly littoral and coastal sites (Corsica, Brittany), wetlands (Arcachon, bay of the Mont Saint-Michel, the Basses valleys angevines, etc) and protected spaces in high mountain. The other mediums (forests, peat bogs, mediums of the woodlands, cereal plains) on the other hand are represented very little.

With the Special Zones of Conservation of the Directive habitats, the network of the sites Natura covers 6.496.917 ha (except seamen circles), that is to say 11,83% of the metropolitan territory.

The debate of the dates of hunting

Vis-a-vis the pressure of the lobby of the hunters, the method which prevailed for the government was to set up a system of closing spread out by species. This system was however considered to be incompatible with the objectives of the directive by the the European Parliament, during a consultation of February 15th, 1996. Besides the rapporteur, Mrs. Van Putten, recommend to harden the Directive Birds, in particular his article 7 paragraph 4, by imposing the closing of hunting at the latest on January 31st. But that going against the Principe of subsidiarity of the European Union, the hunters rétorquent that it is necessary to take into account the differences between country: Norway in the south of the Spain, Lapland with the Bay of Somme, the seasons and the migratory movements are not the same ones.

However, this deadline of January 31st remakes surface later a few years, during the ordering, on March 12th, 1999, by the Minister for town and country planning and the environment Mrs. Dominique Voynet, of a study on the dates of migration and nesting of the water birds and the migratory birds in France. The goal was to manage to clear up the situation and to try to obtain a consensus with the hunters, thanks to scientific data. An work group is formed around the Professor Jean-Claude Lefeuvre, Directeur of the Institute of Ecology and management of the biodiversity and researcher to the national Muséum of natural history and its work group (report/ratio in remote loading on this page). The principal conclusions of this report (consultable here) are the following ones, for what interests us here:

  • concerning the principle of spreading out of the dates of hunting: the risks of confusion, because of a deficit of knowledge naturalist of the hunters but also of most of the population, make difficult the determination of the multiple water chassables birds. It is then difficult to decline the periods of hunting species by species. " the single principle of date making operational the relative tendencies with the exercise of hunting for the migratory birds is thus to privilege ".
  • concerning the dates of hunting in they-even: the confrontation of the current data on the chronology of the premarital migration and the chronology of the reproduction in France of the birds of water and migrating chassables or not highlights that " the period making it possible to ensure the greatest safety of the birds of water and migrating chassables during their premarital migration and their reproduction extends from January 31st to October 1st ".

The recommendations of this report made great noise near the hunters and of the ONCFS, but also near certain scientists external with the debate. Thus, to conclude over the optimal period from protection from January 31st to October 1st, this report/ratio, indeed, often took account of the behavior of atypical individuals, which deeply distinguishes it from the report/ratio of the committee ORNIS which takes care to specify that " the extreme, isolated and fluctuating data were excluded because of their dubious character and because they fall apart from the models from annual variation and intra-annual normal ". According to professor Herby Kalchreuter, whose work is internationally recognized: " These conclusions were established on the basis of very selective and skewed library search, combined with a bad interpretation of the results of the studies. "

In 2006, the business of the dates of opening and closing of hunting in France is still not solved. The ministerial decrees of the Minister for ecology and sustainable development are regularly cancelled by the Council of State, as it was the case in 2001, then regularly in 2002, the exchange accelerating in 2003 when 2 decrees of the minister Mrs. Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, were considered and cancelled by the Council of State in less than one week.

Future of the directive Birds

In 2004, the 25 years celebration of the directive birds was concluded in particular by the signature from a protocol from agreement between Birdlife International and the European Federation of associations of hunting (FEAC) which marked a positive turning in the relations between these recipients playing a big role in the conservation of the birds.

Vis-a-vis the multiplication of confrontations born of various interpretations of the directive, the European commission judged good to set up since 2001 a initiative in favor of a durable hunting in order to start again the dialog. Having for goal to reconcile the practice of hunting and the conservation of the populations of wild birds of the European territory, this initiative led to the drafting in August 2004 of a guide on hunting pursuant to the directive birds. Based on solid scientific data and in the existing legal framework, the purpose of this guide is to specify the interpretation which must be made directive and some of its articles (in particular articles 7 and 9), like on abundant Community and French jurisprudence.

But the directive birds, in addition to the weight of confrontations about hunting, is shown not to apply to a sufficiently broad territory, since it relates to only part of the territory of the migrating populations of the Western Paléarctique (of West Africa in Russia). The widening of the Union from 9 to 15 then 25 countries in 2004 tends to mitigate this lack, but remains insufficient.

A new track takes shape as for a broader protection of the avifauna of the palearctic Westerner. Within the total framework fixed by the Convention of Bonn of June 16th 1995 is the agreement, on the Accord on the conservation of the migrating water birds of Africa-Eurasia, known as agreement AEWA. The European Union signed agreement AEWA on October 1st, 2005. It is an important advance, which should be regarded as a significant element by the Community judge and the national judge. But much of its provisions recommendations constitute, more than obligations. It should be noted that agreement AEWA relates to only waterfowl and not the migrating species in general.

In the framework of the installation of a policy even more complete and effective of protection and conciliation of the uses, the example of North America east in this respect very interesting. In 1988, the the United States, the Canada and the Mexico set up a common management system for ducks and geese. This device makes it possible to modulate the taking away, species by species, for each great migration path. Such a device, being based on an effective network of observation and scientific analysis, would allow an approach much more realistic of the necessary conciliation of hunting and conservation of the species. The widening of the European Union, by appreciably extending the surface of action of the Union, and by making certain crucial States in this field, such as the Russia or the Ukraine, of the Adjacent states, should largely support such a step.

See too

External bonds

  • French Text of the directive 79/409/CEE relating to the conservation of the wild birds
    • appendix I: list species whose protection requires the installation of the ZPS (Special Protection zones)
    • appendix II: list species whose hunting is authorized
    • appendix III: list species whose trade is authorized
  • Carte of the network of the ZPS in France, site of the French ministry of ecology and sustainable development
  • Chronologie of the debate on the dates of opening and closing of hunting in France, following the Directive Birds

Random links:Thaumetopoea | Gabrijel Radić | Balneário Camboriú | Junkers W 33 | Colossos | Royaume_(lutte_professionnelle)