Clever Investment: Protected Areas.
Natura 2000 network of protected areas was created in 1992 after the legislation adopted by the governments of the European Communities, designed to protect the most seriously threatened habitats and species around Europe. This legislation is called the Habitats Directive and complements the Birds Directive adopted in 1979.
Natura network adds more than 26,000 sites in the EU, nearly 2,000 of them in Spain, the figures become the largest coordinated network of protected areas in the world and the main instrument for the conservation of biodiversity that exists in the European Union. There are still some issues which should be solved, but in general the process to construct Natura 2000 has been very positive.
Studies of the European Commission show that proper management of this network requires about 5,800 million euros, but these spaces produce between 200,000 and 300,000 million (between 2 and 3 percent of EU GDP) economic benefits.
These studies show that the spaces of Natura network (covering 18% of the land area of the EU and 28% in Spain) have a vital role to protect many species and habitats, but also contribute to water purification, carbon storage, protection against floods or combat soil erosion and desertification.
In Spain, the analyzes carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and Biodiversity Foundation said that about 1,000 million euros are needed to ensure proper management of the Natura areas -about 80 euros per hectare-, but also match noting that the benefits of this set of spaces far outweigh its cost, in France the net profit by hectare is around 142€, 7 times more than cost associated because of the area management, in Finland, they estimated that for each Euro of public investment in protected areas are obtained 20€ as return.
Then one more time, we can see that spending money in environmental issues is not waste money; it can be a really good investment, moreover not only thinking about the economic investment, we also should think about the current value of the area and its biodiversity, also think about the potential value of it, because we never know what is hidden to our eyes now that could be really useful in the future.
So, what is your opinion, should we consider the idea developed in this post as a new argument for investing in the environment and protect it?
References:
http://www.prioridadrednatura2000.es/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natura_2000
http://www.rednatura2000.info/
Comments Off on Clever Investment: Protected Areas. /
06 Feb 2014
por
marioescamilla
IMSD /
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