Publisher :
Place of publication :
Publication year : 2008
Thematic : Governance
Language : English
Note
In Europe, human societies have affected their landscapes and the other species living there
possibly more than anywhere else in the world. The change has been so pervasive that many
of our biodiversity rich areas can only be maintained and conserved through some form of
human intervention and management. As a matter of fact, biodiversity and human wellbeing
have become so closely intertwined that it is nearly impossible to separate them.
Today, our capacity and willingness to extract natural resources or modify our ecosystems has
increased exponentially and even the landscapes we protect for their value in sustaining
biodiversity are surrounded by intensively used areas. Overall, the effect on biodiversity and
our future wellbeing is not positive. Despite protecting more of the European continent than ever
before (some 18% of the European Union is protected under Natura 2000 alone), we are still
witnessing strong rates of species decline (for instance 42% of native mammals, 43% of birds,
45% of butterflies, 30% of amphibians, 45% of reptiles and 52% of freshwater fish are said to be
declining in numbers throughout Europe1). Political targets have been established to implement
the policies that will address this decline. Much of their focus is not on nature protection
legislation or activities, but rather on those sectors of natural resource use and economic
development that have the greatest impact.
It is against this background that the GEM-CON-BIO project was developed with the tenet that
only through the equitable and sustainable governance and management of natural resources it
will be possible to conserve biodiversity in Europe and elsewhere. In agreement with the
prevailing view of the global community, it was also taken on board that conservation work
should be carried out at the ecosystem level and that ecosystem functions should be fully
valued (in all senses of the term) in order to achieve some form of sustainable development. As
biodiversity underpins much of the ability of ecosystems to provide life-sustaining functions, we
ought to warrant special attention to it. Ecosystems perform environmental functions such as
supporting, regulating, cultural and provisioning delivers goods and services which may have
the character of private or public goods. Ecosystem’s goods and services such as food and
fibre, fresh water, ornamental resources, wood, recreation and educational services, etc. can be
easily exchanged through markets and treated as commodities. On the contrary other
ecosystems goods and services such as spiritual, aesthetic, artistic, etc. inspiration, cultural and
historical identity, habitats for wild species, air & water purification, climate regulation, erosion
control, etc., for their characteristic of being public goods can not be exchanged automatically
through markets so often resulting in externalities.
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Keywords : Adriatic Sea
Encoded by : Pauline Carmel Joy Eje
