Use of Article 17 report in Flanders Desiré Paelinckx

Use of article 17 report: for setting conservation goals; to prioritize species monitoring; one lesson learnt

Setting conservation goals

Example regional conservation goals for the area of a habitat CS assessment 2007 habitat type (due to one or more criteria) (habitat area > 400 ha) habitat area < 400 ha) Area increase Policy decision on area increase needed for favourable CS U2 > 10% 10% + extra for: # large buffered core areas in local FV CS typical species + extra to reach favourable CS of annex species which need large areas of the habitat of the species U1 1 – 10% 5% FRV for 2013 report For habitat types with total cover < 400 ha a detailed procedure was followed, looking to the possibilities to increase the lager individual habitat localities  often the natural environment is limiting these possibilities. Extra “area for typical species” is especially added for habitat types with a scattered distribution of small habitat patches. Link to species assessment limited to species in unfavourable conditions and which need large areas of the habitat of the species. Most annex species are considered has having enough habitat of the species due to the other measures for habitat types OR needs especially other types of habitat of the species not included in het annexes of the HD or BD. CS assessment BD species CS assessment 2007 of HD species

Setting regional conservation goals Read more: Louette, G., Adriaens, D., Adriaens, P., Anselin, A., Devos, K., Sannen, K., Van Landuyt, W., Paelinckx, D. & Hoffmann, M. 2011. Bridging the gap between the Natura 2000 regional conservation status and local conservation objectives. Journal for Nature Conservation 19: 224-235.

Prioritizing species monitoring STEP 1: importance of Flanders for the European (Atlantic) population? species currently AND historically marginal (e.g. at the border of range) NO YES Article 17 report 2007 of all MS Range limited to W-Europe AND species rather widespread in Flanders the amount of the population in Flanders > in most other MS NO YES NO YES Very important Important Less important

Prioritizing species monitoring STEP 2: priority setting Importance of Flanders for the species Very important Important less important Article 17 report 2007 Belgian ATL Species CS = FV Species CS U1 of U2 or X Structured monitoring schemes = data collection on randomly selected sites with a fixed time interval. Further prioritizing could be necesarry due to feasibility reasons and will then be done by altering the statistical power and thus the sample size. Unsuitable for species for which the probability of the presence or the chance of detection is insufficient  unstructured surveillance Priority high Priority moderate Structured monitoring scheme with (a rather) high statistical power (if the species is suitable for such schemes) Unstructured surveillance

Lessons learnt The exercise done for setting the regional conservation goal has underestimated the possibilities and maybe also the needs to reach FV CS for the “medium abundant” habitat types the decisions made for the most common habitat types put limitations on the realisation of the goals of the “medium abundant ones” we are not sure that e.g. the area goal of the latter ones is in reality enough to reach FV CS (=?FRA?) possible solution: down weighting the more common habitat types or up weighting the less common ones Most common habitat types are mainly forests  discussion between goals for forest opposite of the ones for open habitat types