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nature restoration law
'Momentous Day for Nature': EU Adopts First-of-Its-Kind Habitat Restoration Law
One campaigner called the law’s passage a “ray of hope for Europe’s nature, future generations, and the livelihoods of rural communities.”
Jun 17, 2024
Environmental groups celebrated a "historic" victory on Monday as the European Union adopted a law that seeks to restore at least 20% of land and sea habitats by 2030 and 90% to 100% by 2050, following a narrow vote by the European Council that swung on the vote of an Austrian minister who defied conservatives in her own government.
The new law, aimed at reversing catastrophic biodiversity loss, includes a sweeping array of protections for European ecosystems, from forests to wetlands to coral reefs. It also aims to restore organic soils in agricultural ecosystems, with special provisions for grassland pollinators and farmland birds. It was described as the "first ever" E.U. law aimed at nature recovery.
"After years of intense campaigning and many ups and downs, we are jubilant that this law is now reality—this day will go down in history as a turning point for nature and society," World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) EU, one of several organizations that campaigned for the law under a #RestoreNature banner, wrote on social media.
🚨 BREAKING: We have the EU Nature Restoration Law!
Member States have just adopted the game-changing law for Europe's degraded ecosystems
It's a huge win for the EU's nature, citizens & the economy and the people behind the #RestoreNature campaign!
Thank you all 💚 pic.twitter.com/MmZPOQXzWW
— WWF EU (@WWFEU) June 17, 2024
The law's adoption came after what WWF EU called "one of the most tumultuous journeys in the history of E.U. legislation," a two-year-long saga that was dramatic up until its final moments.
The law's final hurdle was cleared by the European Council on Monday when 20 out of the 27 E.U. environment ministers, collectively representing 66% of the bloc's population—just enough to meet the 65% required by qualified majority rules—voted in favor.
The threshold was met when Leonore Gewessler, Austria's environment minister, moved in favor of the law despite opposition from the leaders of her own coalition government. Gewessler is a member of the Austria's Green party, a junior coalition partner to the conservatives, who oppose the new E.U. law.
The law was nearly adopted by the Council in March, but was derailed when Hungary withdrew support.
On Monday, Hungary, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden voted against the law; Belgium abstained. It will enter into force in all member states, each of which will now be required to develop national nature restoration plans.
I want to be like @lgewessler - the most brave Envi Minister ever! Despite facing opposition in her own country - #Austria , she decided to support #NatureRestorationLaw! 👏 We will see if it is enough, but nevertheless this act of courage moved me 💚 pic.twitter.com/Q6IRYFQU8J
— Agata Szafraniuk (@AgataSzafraniuk) June 17, 2024
The E.U. parliament had passed the law in February, following trilogue negotiations last year, after which Council passage is normally a formality. But this law was a political lightning rod that threatened normal institutional processes.
"The failure to adopt the law would not only threaten Europe's highly degraded nature but also send a negative signal about established political processes within European institutions," Špela Bandelj Ruiz, a Greenpeace campaigner, told Common Dreams.
Agribusiness groups had waged a sustained campaign against the law while it was being considered by parliament, and it was one of the targets of the many farmer protests in Europe this year. There was an "unprecedented and absurd disinformation campaign," WWF EU said.
The adoption of the law, which was part of the European Green Deal, a set of environmental laws and regulations put in place by the E.U. over the last five years, comes just before a new EU parliament swears in next month, following elections last week. The new parliament will have fewer green party representatives and more conservatives than before, as well as more members from the far-right.
The nature restoration law will be instrumental in helping the E.U. to meet its commitment under the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework signed at the 2022 U.N. Biodiversity Conference (COP15), nonprofit groups and E.U. officials said.
"The European delegation will be able to go to the next COP with its head held high," Alain Maron, minister for Climate Transition, Environment, Energy, and Participatory Democracy of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region, said in an E.U. statement.
COP16 will be held in October in Colombia. Greenpeace said that failure to adopt the new law would have been an "embarrassment" to the E.U.
The law comes following dire reports about the state of nature in the E.U., where more than 80% of habitats are in poor condition. "Biodiversity in the E.U. continues to decline and faces deteriorating trends from changes in land and sea use, overexploitation and unsustainable management practices, as well as water regime modification, pollution, invasive alien species, and climate change," according to a 2020 report by the European Environment Agency.
Bandelj of Greenpeace told Common Dreams that some of the language on agricultural ecosystems in the law had been watered down during negotiations; for example, some of the targets are effort-based rather than results-based, with lawmakers writing "which shall aim to" rather than using more binding language. Bandelj also expressed concern that an "emergency brake" loophole could be applied, suspending implementation of the law in the event of food security concerns.
Still, Bandelj called the law a "ray of hope for Europe's nature, future generations, and the livelihoods of rural communities."
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'Collapse of Political Ambition': EU Shelves Nature Restoration Law
"To let this go now means we go into European elections saying the European system is not working, we do not protect nature, we do not take climate seriously," said Ireland's environmental minister. "That would be an absolute shame."
Mar 26, 2024
Environmental ministers in the European Union on Monday warned that the bloc's credibility on heading off the global biodiversity and climate emergencies is in peril following the European Council's decision to remove the historic Nature Restoration Law from its agenda after the proposal lost key support.
"We inspired others, yet now we risk arriving empty handed at COP16 [the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference]," Virginijus Sinkevičius, E.U. commissioner for environment, oceans, and fisheries, said in a statement. "Backtracking now is... very difficult for me to accept."
The law, first introduced in 2022 and approved by European Parliament last month, faced one final hurdle to passage with the planned Council vote, but recent protests by farmers over the new nature restoration requirements helped push some previous supporters to reverse their positions on Monday.
The Nature Restoration Law, which supporters said they still intend to try to pass before E.U. elections in June, would require member states to adopt measures to restore at least 30% of habitats by 2030, working up to 90% by 2050. Member states would be required to take action to reverse pollinator populations, restore organic soils in agricultural use, increase development of urban green areas, and take other steps to protect biodiversity.
Since the farmer protests began in France and started spreading to other countries including Spain, Belgium, and Italy, policymakers have offered concessions including delayed implementation of another set of biodiversity rules calling for the agriculture industry to keep 4% of farming land free of crop production to regenerate healthy soil. The European Commission also shelved an anti-pesticide law in February in response to the protests.
As countries announced their new opposition to the Nature Restoration Law in recent days, some ministers suggested the demonstrations contributed to their decision.
Anikó Raisz, Hungary's minister of state for environmental affairs, said the law would "overburden the economy" and cited concerns about the "sensitive situation" in the agriculture sector. Italy also said it was concerned about the biodiversity rules' impact on farmers.
The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) accused far-right Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, who has dismissed European climate policies, of being behind the "unexpected and clearly politically motivated change in Hungary's position."
Hungary's opposition "was left unchallenged by Sweden, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Italy—who continue to either abstain or oppose," and "has now put the [Nature Restoration Law] in jeopardy again, giving Hungary's President Viktor Orbán the green light to further his own agenda and hold E.U. decision-making hostage," said WWF.
Eamon Ryan, Irish minister for the environment, accused other policymakers in the bloc of "buckling" before the farmer protests, which continued Tuesday, ahead of June elections.
"The biggest risk is the collapse of political ambition and will," Ryan said. "To let this go now means we go into European elections saying the European system is not working, we do not protect nature, we do not take climate seriously. That would be an absolute shame."
BirdLife Europe called on the E.U. the continue its efforts to pass the Nature Restoration Law before the session ends this summer.
"The E.U.'s reputation hangs in the balance in this critical year of E.U. elections," said the group. "Failure to make the law a reality also undermines the E.U.'s credibility and leadership on its international commitments to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises."
"This is definitely not the end of the story," Alain Maron, Belgium's minister for climate change, environment, energy, and participative democracy, told reporters at a press conference Monday. He added that the Belgian presidency of the European Council "will work hard in the next few weeks to find possible ways out of this deadlock, and get the file back on the agenda for adoption in another council."
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'Not the Solution': EU Delays Biodiversity Rule to Appease Farmers Protesting High Costs
"The farmers' protests across Europe highlight the need for the E.U. to set a clear long-term vision and plan to support farmers in a transition to a sustainable and resilient agriculture model," said one policy expert.
Feb 01, 2024
Food policy and biodiversity advocacy groups in Europe on Thursday said the European Commission's recent concession to farmers who have protested high costs across France and other countries this week will ultimately harm the agricultural sector as well as citizens across the continent.
The Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GEAC) 8, under the European Union biodiversity strategy, calls for farmers to keep 4% of their land free from crop production to help regenerate healthy soil and increase biodiversity, or to use 7% of their land for "catch crops" which provide cover for the soil.
After farmers began demonstrating across France—blocking major roads with their tractors and dumping manure at government offices—and as the protests spread to Belgium, Spain, and Italy, the European Commission announced Wednesday a proposal to allow the sector to delay implementing the rules until 2025.
The uproar by farmers has been focused on the high cost of land and energy as well as pressure to sell their crops at near-cost prices and from the government to follow new rules like those proposed in the E.U.'s Nature Restoration Law.
As part of the bloc's Green Deal to protect the environment and reduce planetary heating, the law will establish measures to restore at least 20% of the E.U.'s land.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said Thursday that farmers "are asking for fair rewards for producing our food, and they are right," but warned that rolling back GEAC 8 "sidesteps the fundamental problem experienced and voiced by farmers across Europe, namely unfair prices."
Instead of delaying biodiversity rules, said Giulia Riedo, the group's sustainable farming policy officer, the European Commission should fully implement "the Unfair Trade Practices Directive, ensuring that farmers who farm sustainably receive more funds, and requiring food processors and retailers to play their part in improving the sustainability of the food sector."
"By sacrificing critical environmental measures, policymakers are barking up the wrong tree, and harming the long-term resilience and viability of Europe's farming sector in the process," said Riedo.
The group called for more public funding for farmers who farm sustainably and for "untargeted and harmful subsidies" to be "fundamentally repurposed, supported by increased funding for nature-friendly farming practices."
WWF also noted that agricultural funds are not fairly distributed, with "20% of the largest European farmers, often large-scale industrial agribusinesses, [receiving] 80% of direct payments, while most farmers (often family farms) on small or medium-sized farms receive little to nothing."
The group echoed an observation by the author of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week regarding profitability as a barrier to sustainable farming.
"Our results suggest that biodiversity-friendly farming can produce a win-win situation for biodiversity and ecosystem service delivery, but will often require additional public or private payments to become profitable for farmers," said Jeroen Scheper of Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands.
At the Institute for European Environmental Policy, Harriet Bradley, head of the group's Common Agricultural Policy and Food program, said loosening biodiversity rules for farmers "in many cases will be counterproductive."
"Numerous studies show that, if well-designed and managed, areas left for nature can enhance crop yields by boosting pollination and natural pest control," said Bradley. "Climate and biodiversity crises pose an existential threat, including to food security, to which the E.U. Green Deal is an essential response. Many European farmers face significant economic and social challenges, but relaxing rules that protect biodiversity is not the solution."
"Instead," she said, "the farmers' protests across Europe highlight the need for the E.U. to set a clear long-term vision and plan to support farmers in a transition to a sustainable and resilient agriculture model rather than continuing to lurch from crisis to crisis."
By delaying the potential for "pollinators that support farmers' production and natural predators that control pests," added BirdLife Europe and Central Asia, the European Commission's decision will make farmers "more dependent on the chemical industry."
"Rather than helping farmers," said the group, "we are making their situation worse."
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