EU Birds Directive

Today, the renowned journal Science publishes a BirdLife International analysis showing that the European Union’s Birds Directive has made a significant difference in protecting many of the continent’s most threatened birds from further decline. (You don't want to read the report its all odds, ratios and models!)

The groundbreaking paper (RSPB of course!) shows that the Birds Directive has clearly helped those species considered to be most at risk, partly through the designation of Special Protection Areas (SPAs). The Birds Directive was adopted in 1979 and is now binding law for all EU countries, it requires special conservation measures for a number of listed species.

One species on the annex 1 list is our own Storm-petrel. Unfortunately how it is performing under the Directive is officially classed as 'unknown'. Given our visits to ENR maybe we should consider setting up some kind of annual CES sort of thing in order to collect a 'year-on-year' dataset to see how the bird are fairing. Just a thought.