Claim a specific European fund for Natura 2000 network and greater participation in space management and compensation and severance private owners.
Jose Luis Hernandez, as President of CEAPEN (Spanish Confederation of Associations of Owners of Natural Areas), participated as a speaker, Wednesday 26, a Day of Social Participation on "Natura 2000; scenario of sustainable economic development";
It held in the Auditorium of the Ministry of Environment in Madrid.
The conference was organized by the Infonatur project, the Board of Extremadura, EFEverde and Provincial Councils of Girona and Lleida, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).
The day opened with the intervention of the Assistant Director General of the Environment Ministry of the Environment, who summed up the situation and environmental problems of the Natura 2000 network in Spain.
Also they involved in the conference Infonatur Director, President of IUCN in Spain, and the Director of EFEverde.
The intervention of the President of CEAPEN occurred in the context of a panel and a round table in which representatives of various social, environmental and business groups related to Natura 2000 in order to offer his vision on how impact Natura in its sector, exposing concrete experiences related to Natura and the demands of each group to improve the negative aspects of these experiences.
In the panel and roundtable Jornada exposed, among others, the positions of agricultural organizations (COAG and UPA), Environmental Groups (WWF Spain), fisheries sector;
Land stewardship platform;
hunting sector;
as well as public institutions (Biodiversity Foundation and autonomous regions of Madrid and Extremadura).
The intervention of José Luis Hernández, representing private owners who, as stated, are holders of 55% of the surface of the Natura 2000 network in Spain was focused on explaining that CEAPEN was composed of 21 federations and associations of owners of various Spanish Autonomous communities.
While he anticipated that his speech would be "provocative" and could be controversial to some attendees.
He told attendees José Luis Hernández owners were taking expenses and maintenance costs of the network, without receiving virtually any compensation for the prohibitions of uses and activities that were imposed by management plans or compensation for the limitations imposed by the rules of the Autonomous Communities have a farm in Red Natura.
Nor it is as stated are the owners receiving any amount of direct and indirect benefits of the Natura 2000 network in Spain, the President of CEAPEN quantified in about 6,000 million euros per year, below the more than 9,000 million euros, which they are quantified in a study conducted by the Ministry of Environment, as reported on the same occasion.
Reminded the President of CEAPEN the obvious heterogeneity and lack of coordination between the criteria with which European and national regulations in different Autonomous Communities, which leads to, as he said while in the Community of Madrid had LIC that housed inside urban areas applies some known populations;
in regions such as Murcia, banned or subjected to environmental impact and repercussions any small building situated up to a thousand meters from the outer perimeter of natural areas Natura 2000.
Also recalled Jose Luis Hernandez, the phrase in which the creator of the Red Natura 2000 the then Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström stated that for the management of Natura was efficient, had to give "active participation to people they live and depend on natural areas. "
But that explained the President of CEAPEN some environmental managers of the Autonomous Communities interpreted the Commissioner referred to them and not to private owners when speaking of "the people who live and depend on natural spaces."
The President of CEAPEN also presented several examples of prohibitions and limitations on the use of functions and traditional economic activities, which are intended to apply the rules of the Management Plans, which had resulted in an opposition and alarm and hostility, among dozens of thousands of homeowners affected, having reached some resorted Management Plans by the owners before the courts, as was the case of the Plan of Northwest Murcia.
He ended his speech by José Luis Hernández concluded that the Natura 2000 network could be a key to meeting the objectives spring against climate change and to achieve sustainable development goals of the UN.
But the President of CEAPEN they can not advance much in the planning of natural areas and improvement of the conservation status of Natura, without an active participation in the management of space and budget he is also convinced LIC and SPAs Natura 2000 by private owners.
Concluded by the President of CEAPEN concluding that it was essential to the existence of specific European funding for the Natura 2000 network and had to complain and denounce Brussels for its flagrant breach of commitments of European funding, reflected in article 8 of the Habitats Directive itself, which celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary next 2017.
