Measuring progress towards Target 1 Joint Habitats/Ornis Committee meeting 29-30 April 2014 Measuring progress towards Target 1 1

Background 5th version of the paper Expert Group on Reporting commented in 2012, 2013 & 2014 Habitats Directive component endorsed by Habitats Committee on 3.10.2013 Ornis Committe on 4.10.2013 asked for review of the Birds Directive component (prioritise use of MS birds population trends) Ad hoc workshop on 21.11.2013 (9 MS represented, 1 stakeholder, DG ENV, EC consultant, EEA, ETC/BD) Methodology revised and agreed at workshop 2

Target 1 – Habitats Directive (c) Carlos Romão 3

Measuring progress towards Target 1 Habitats directive … 100% more habitat assessments and 50% more species assessments under the Habitats Directive show (a favourable or) an improved conservation status TWO components Species and habitat types in Favourable CS Unfavourable species & habitat types with improved CS Baseline for EU target: 17 % of Habitats and 17 % of species with a Favourable conservation status – Article 17 reporting 2001-2006 NB: 'assessments' mean EU biogeographical assessments 4

Conservation Status in 2007 - 2012 Measuring 'improvement' Change in conservation status Conservation Status in 2007 - 2012 FV U1 + U1 U1 - U2 + U2 U2 - XX CS in 2001 - 2006 A (=) C (-) E (x) A (+) B (+) D (=) A – Favourable B – Unfavourable but improving C – Unfavourable and deteriorating D - No change E – Became unknown (=) no change (+) improvement (-) deterioration (x) not known 5

Genuine changes 2007 reports: first attempt, improvements needed Improved guidelines / harmonisation A few methodological changes (e.g. range calculation, future prospects) Re-evaluation of threasholds at MS level Better data, but also 'worse' data (outdated, no monitoring) Change in CS not always a 'true' change of condition Compare 2007 with 2013 (1 to 1) not 'possible', but needed 6

Ca. 65 % of assessments did not change! Genuine change – from available audit trails Ca. 65 % of assessments did not change! Only ca. 20 % of genuine change 7

Genuine change – possible approaches At the EU biogeographical level Based on MS reports and ‘audit trails’ (nature of change) EEA-ETC/BD experts Overall conservation status Conservation status trend (+), (-), (=) ‘Nature of change’ for target calculation At the MS biogeographical level Further explore 'best and full use of audit trails' Make statistics 'genuine' / 'non-genuine' change To go together with statistics about 'conservation status change' 8

Results – dummy example (pages 6-8 Target 1 paper) 20 % FV, 31 % U1, 37 % U2, 12 % XX 10 % improved, but remained unfavourable 76 % 100 Target 1 is 76 % fulfilled (+13 out of 17 % reached in 2013) DUMMY DATA 9

Results – dummy example (pages 6-8 Target 1 paper) 30 % favourable or improved assessments No change for 58 % of unfavourable assessments 12 % unknown assessments Net change of + 2 % (improvement – deterioration) D C A+B DUMMY DATA 10

Results – dummy example (pages 6-8 Target 1 paper) Using conservation status trends (qualifiers) DUMMY DATA 11

Target 1 – Birds Directive (c) Otars Opermanis 12

Measuring progress towards Target 1 Birds directive … 50% more species assessments under the Birds Directive show a secure or improved status TWO components Species with a secure status Non-secure species with improved status Baseline for EU target: 52 % species with a Secure status - Birds in the European Union: a status assessment (BirdLife, 2004) NB: 'assessments' mean assessments at the EU level 13

Criteria to identify component A: secure species (see Table 3, page 10 of Target 1 Paper) Sufficient data to assess all extant native bird species in the EU27? Is the species Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable in the EU27?   The species is considered to be Secure in the EU27 Is the species Near Threatened, Declining or Depleted in the EU27? No Yes Threatened Not Secure Secure Unknown 14

Compares trend direction of non-secure species Criteria to identify component B: 'improving' species Fully based on bird population trend data reported by MS under Article 12 Compares trend direction of non-secure species Long-term trend (1980-2012) Short-term trend (2001-2012) Increasing Stable/Fluctuating Declining Unknown Yes No 'Yes' count as improvement 15

Component of calculation Dummy examples Component of calculation Definition 2004 Baseline 2014 Scenario 1 2014 Scenario 2   Number of Threatened species 54 50 60 Number of Not Secure species 159 150 170 A Number of Secure species (Figure 1; Table 3) 232 245 215 Total number of species assessed 445 A% Percentage of Secure species 52% 55% 48% B Number of Improving species (i.e. non-secure but with stable or increasing trends; Table 4) n/a 15 30 B% Percentage of Improving species 3% 7% A + B Total number of species in target condition (i.e. Secure + Improving) 260 A% + B% Total percentage of species in target condition (i.e. Secure + Improving) 58% 16

Results – dummy example (page 12 Target 1 paper, Scenario 1) 55 % Secure, 11 % Threatened, 34 % Not Secure 3 % improved, but still not secure 23 % 100 Target 1 is 23 % fulfilled (+ 6 out of 26 % reached in 2013) DUMMY DATA 17

Methodology to be approaved by Habitats and Ornis Committes Follow-up Methodology to be approaved by Habitats and Ornis Committes EEA-ETC/BD to process data after finalisation of EU biogeographical assessement (July-August) First results available September 2014 Thank you for your attention 18