Point 5 Revising the Natura 2000 Standard Data Form Habitats Committee 15th November 2010

What happened so far? Draft revised SDF was discussed in a Sub-group meeting in March 2009 Reporting Group Meeting of June 2009 Reporting Group Meeting of November 2009 Reporting Group Meeting of April 2010 Consultation of Habitats Committee (cc Reporting Group) 1st consultation in February 2010 2nd consultation in July 2010 (13.7-17 Sept. 2010) 15 Member States have submitted comments: AT, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FR, HU, IE, IT, NL, PL, SE, SK, UK

General comments received Updating SDFs in general The change of the SDF into a monitoring/reporting tool is not agreed on (DK) The updating of the SDF does not imply a new monitoring requirement; In order to fulfil its multiple roles the SDF needs to be a reasonable kept up to date documentation of the site. Still fears are expressed as to the deletion of species/habitats that have disappeared from sites (potential impact on Art.6 assessments, etc.) The introduction of the encoding of habitats and species with ‘Not present’ (any longer) instead of their deletion from the SDF is welcomed by most MS and could be made obligatory

General comments received Introduction of the online Reference Portal The online portal is welcome. The modus of approval of changes made within the Reference Portal has to be agreed on (DE) Proposal: for the elements in the Reference Portal that are under the influence/discretion of DG Environment (e.g. the list of threats and pressures) changes need to be approved by the Committee A draft reference portal (not yet finalised) is available now: http://biodiversity.eionet.europa.eu/activities/Natura_2000/reference_portal

Natura 2000 Reference Portal (1) Code-lists that are under the discretion of the Habitats Committee List of designated SCIs (SDF field: 1.7) Marine Boundaries (SDF field: 2.3) Biogeographical regions (SDF field: 2.6) Code-list of Annex I habitats (SDF field: 3.1) Other code-lists (SDF fields 3.2, 3.3) Species groups, data quality, abundance categories, motivation categories Code-list for bird species (SDF fields 3.2, 3.3) Code-list for species (Annex II,IV,V) (SDF fields: 3.2, 3.3) General Site character (SDF fields: 4.1) Population units (SDF fields: 3.2, 3.3) Threats, Pressures, Activities (SDF field: 4.3) Guidelines for submitting Natura 2000 data

Natura 2000 Reference Portal (2) Not under the direct discretion of the Habitats Committee NUTS regions (SDF field: 2.5) Nature conservation designation types (SDF field: 5.1) (national responsibility) Inspire ID (SDF field: 7) (national responsibility under INSPIRE) Minor corrections in the webpage like typos, misspellings

General comments received (3) Technical specification of the SDF The technical specifications of the SDF and related reporting tools need to be defined in order to enable Member States to update their software applications The technical effort for the change to the new SDF should be kept as simple as possible It is proposed that a new template (mdb) for the revised SDF will be created (with xml export functionality) and tested by some MS The need / costs for a new graphical user interface (GUI) needs to be evaluated For a transition phase the upload of ‘old’ versions and new versions of the database needs to be handled in parallel by Reportnet For the long term the Inspire profile for protected areas should be adopted to the new version of the SDF

Comments on the format (section 1-7) Many useful comments received from MS All comments were listed in a room document (see also CIRCA) together with a proposed solution / comment Only some, which are in obvious need of debate and decision shall be mentioned in this presentation

Field 2.4 – « Altitude » COMMENTS MS For marine sites the maximum and minimum average depth helps to have a general idea on the type of biological communities that might be present in the area. It is proposed to keep the field altitude in the SDF. [ES] PROPOSED SOLUTION Based on the discussions within the Expert Group Reporting, the field Altitude was deleted from the SDF. In case that all MS with marine sites regard the information on depth of marine sites a highly relevant and want to see the respective field added to the SDF this can be done.

Field 3.x Ecological information COMMENT MS Some Member States propose to fill in the SDF only for the ‘conservation objects’ of the respective Directive. Meaning for SCIs only species and habitats of the Habitats Directive and for SPAs only information on the birds covered by the Birds Directive [DE, DK,PL] PROPOSED SOLUTION For C-type sites one form needs to be filled in. For A and B type sites: If Member States are in favour to change this guideline for A and B types sites and only include the respective species/habitats under the relevant directive, this can be changed.

Field 3.x species and habitats COMMENT MS It is suggested to introduce the possibility to indicate whether a habitat is a ‘new presence’ which was not present in the site when the site was first proposed/ designated [NL] PROPOSED SOLUTION The introduction of an additional field for ‘newly arrived habitats/species’ is not considered necessary. However if MS wish to add such a field it can be done. In this case please note that the explanatory notes should not give a legal interpretation on how to deal with these species/habitats but that this should be dealt with in a separate process

Field 3.x species and habitats COMMENT MS A mechanism for deleting species/habitats which were never present in the site (‘errors’) is missing [IE,ES] It should be explained that the field ‘no longer present’ does not refer to historic occurrences [DE] The field ‘no longer present’ provide much information and it is suggested to make it obligatory [ES] Having the NP field non-mandatory is counterproductive to the aims of the directive (DK) PROPOSED SOLUTION Real errors should be deleted from the SDF (and not marked as ‘NP’), the reason is documented by MS in the justifications that accompany the data delivery It will be explained, that the field does not refer to historic occurrences of species The proposal to make the field ‘no longer present’ obligatory is welcomed by the EC. Do other MS agree?

Field 3.2 species: population units COMMENT MS It is suggested that the basic population unit should be localities in combination with the opportunity to use other units [SK] PROPOSED SOLUTION The revised version of the SDF allows already for units different than individuals & pairs. The explanatory text will be adapted to explain and reflect better the latest discussions in Art.17. In the Art.17 process the use of units is now left to MS but conversion to individuals is still recommended (but not mandatory). Units used in the SDF should be in line with the units used for the Article 17 reporting; a standardized list of codes for units will be provided.

Field 3.2 species COMMENT MS A date stamp on the population data is needed. It is unlikely to be the same date as completion of the form and is essential to avoid version control problems [UK,DK] PROPOSED SOLUTION An adequate version control is carried out as part of the European Natura2000 database. It is understood that MS need the information of the collection time of the data on populations. On EU level it is not absolutely necessary, it is supposed that the best available knowledge is used for filling in these data. If however MS wish to have a date-stamp field for each species entry this can be done. As it is not considered useful to have this as (not-useable) optional field, this should then be an obligatory field.

Field 4.1 – General site character: broad habitat classes PROPOSED SOLUTION The data sources to be used depends highly on what is available within the MS; it seems not to be feasible to give further detailed explanations. In order to allow for a broader set of categories e.g. for marine we propose that in addition / alternative to the classes listed here, the EUNIS habitats classification can be used in order to describe the general site character. Would MS be in favour of such an approach? COMMENTS MS There is no further explanation of the data source to be used. The use of CLC data can cause discrepancies between the values in section 4.1. [CZ] The marine environment is poorly reflected in comparison to the terrestrial one. [UK]

Field 4.3 – Threats, pressures and activities COMMENTS MS It is essential to clarify which time interval is referred to, section needs to be optional [DK] Elaborate more about the connections between pressures and threats and the management of the sites [NL] PROPOSED SOLUTION While it is not intended to overcomplicate the SDF with timestamps for several fields, the EC is ready to include one here if all MS agree to have an explicit obligatory timestamp for this field. Will be done.

Outlook - Timing Time-planning for SDF-revision still to be discussed Two steps envisaged: Transfer data from old to new format and upload the new version & filling gaps / update information that is available (e.g. SAC designation date & legal reference, marine %); proposal: until end 2012 for a transition period (3rd quarter 2011 – end 2012) it will be possible to upload either old or new versions of the SDF. Filling gaps / update information that is not readily available (primarily information in the “Ecological information” section); proposal: until end 2015

Outlook – Technical specifications Technical specifications will be kept as simple as possible a template database (MS Access) will be created and tested until mid 2011 The database will have an export function for XML (e.g. to allow for qa/qc by MS before the upload of data) For the long term perspective: an INSPIRE profile will be available, necessary to have a discussion between JRC,DG ENV, EEA / ETC/BD Support for MS (provision of scripts) to transfer data from existing tables into a new table structure (EEA/ETC) The need for a graphical user interface (GUI, adoption of the old Natura2000 software) can be discussed in the next expert group reporting if MS whish