Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 155, October 2012, Pages 1-12
Biological Conservation

Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem service supply, biodiversity, and habitat conservation status in Europe

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2012.06.016Get rights and content

Abstract

In the European Union (EU) efforts to conserve biodiversity have been consistently directed towards the protection of habitats and species through the designation of protected areas under the Habitats Directive (92/43/ECC). These biodiversity conservation efforts also have the potential to maintain or improve the supply of ecosystem services; however, this potential has been poorly explored across Europe. This paper reports on a spatial assessment of the relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and conservation status of protected habitats at European scale. We mapped at 10 km resolution ten spatial proxies for ecosystem service supply (four provisioning services, five regulating services and one cultural service) and three proxies for biodiversity (Mean Species Abundance, tree species diversity and the relative area of Natura 2000 sites). Indicators for biodiversity and aggregated ecosystem service supply were positively related but this relationship was influenced by the spatial trade-offs among ecosystem services, in particular between crop production and regulating ecosystem services. Using multinomial logistic regression models we demonstrated that habitats in a favourable conservation status provided more biodiversity and had a higher potential to supply, in particular, regulating and cultural ecosystem services than habitats in an unfavourable conservation status. This information is of utmost importance in identifying regions in which measures are likely to result in cost-effective progress towards both new biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services targets adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020.

Highlights

► We mapped indicators for biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe. ► We compared these maps with the conservation status of protected habitats. ► Habitats in favourable conservation status supplied more ecosystem services. ► Habitats in favourable conservation status had higher biodiversity.

Introduction

The European Union’s Natura 2000 network, established under the Habitats Directive (92/43/ECC), represents the largest network of protected sites in the world. At present, the network covers 117 million hectares, corresponding to 17% of the surface area of the countries that constitute the EU. The 1992 Habitats Directive is based on a conservation approach to biodiversity. In order to achieve its goal of maintaining at, or restoring to, favourable conservation status, natural and semi-natural habitat types and threatened species of wild fauna and flora, a network of protected areas was established. The Habitats Directive expanded considerably the scope of the 1979 Birds Directive (79/409/EEC) which aims to protect all wild bird species naturally occurring in the EU. Both directives form the legal basis for the European Commission to take the necessary measures to protect biodiversity and ecosystems in the EU.

Despite the efforts taken to conserve habitats and species across the EU there is, however, compelling evidence that the “2010 target” of halting or significantly reducing the loss of biodiversity in the EU as well as at global scale has not been met (Butchart et al., 2010; Hoffmann et al., 2010; Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2010). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005) and, more recently, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study (TEEB, 2010) have both increased awareness of the negative impacts of biodiversity loss on human welfare by addressing the value of ecosystems and biodiversity for sustaining livelihoods, economies, and human wellbeing. Failing to incorporate the values of ecosystem services and biodiversity into economic decision-making has resulted in investments and activities that degrade natural capital (TEEB, 2010).

In 2010, the tenth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) led to the adoption of a global Strategic Plan for biodiversity for the period 2011–2020. The “2020 Aichi targets” complement the previous conservation-based biodiversity targets with the addition of ecosystem services. Protecting ecosystems and the services they provide to people is assumed to result in positive effects on the conservation of habitats and species. A similar policy is followed by the EU. The new Biodiversity Strategy aims to halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020 (European Commission, 2011). The Strategy contains six targets: first and foremost to continue conserving nature through completion of the Natura 2000 network and simultaneously ensuring good management practises in the included protected areas. The second target uses the argument of ecosystem services to maintain and restore ecosystems through the deployment of a green infrastructure.

The concept of ecosystem services is said to have great potential in adding value to current conservation approaches, in particular for local and regional planning (Chan et al., 2006, Daily and Matson, 2008, Nelson et al., 2009, Egoh et al., 2009); however, this potential remains poorly explored across Europe (Haslett et al., 2010, Harrison et al., 2010).

In this paper we report on a spatial assessment of the relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and conservation status of protected habitats at European scale. The hypothesis is that habitats in a favourable conservation status provide higher levels across multiple ecosystem services and host a richer biodiversity than habitats in unfavourable conservation status. Using spatial datasets of habitat conservation status, ecosystem service supply, and biodiversity covering the EU, we present evidence that supports this hypothesis. Our approach consisted of three parts: Firstly, we mapped spatially explicit indicators for biodiversity and ecosystem services at EU scale. Then we analysed the spatial concordance between multiple ecosystem services and biodiversity. Finally we analysed the relationship between habitat conservation status, ecosystem services, and biodiversity.

Section snippets

Spatial indicators for land cover, ecosystem services and biodiversity

We mapped the European distribution of different proxies for land cover, ecosystem service supply and biodiversity at a 10 km resolution using a reference grid system (EEA, 2007). Here we provide a brief description of the spatial data that were used to map land cover, high nature value farmland, the delivery of ecosystem services, and the biodiversity of each grid cell; a more detailed description of the data used for this analysis is provided in Appendix A.

The Corine Land Cover 2000 (CLC2000)

Spatial patterns in biodiversity and ecosystem service supply

In Europe, the supply of multiple ecosystem services (TESV) was low in the densely populated areas of the Atlantic plane and northern Italy as well as in areas with intensive agriculture and livestock production in Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom (Fig. 1). TESV was high in areas with dense forest cover, in particular mountains, and regions rich in wetlands such as north-west Ireland or Sweden and Finland.

The proxies used for biodiversity also revealed an uneven distribution across Europe (

Discussion

Our study presents evidence that, on a countrywide scale, habitats in a favourable conservation status were likely to supply more regulating ecosystem services, have a higher recreation potential and provide more water than habitats in an unfavourable status. This conclusion was based on indicators that measured only the biophysical supply of ecosystem services. Ecosystem services flow from sites where they are produced to sites where they are consumed (Costanza, 2008). Therefore, the

Conclusion

New biodiversity policies strengthen conservation approaches to biodiversity through the addition of ecosystem services. In Europe, the Habitats Directive represents supranational legislation that aims to bring natural habitats and endangered species to good conservation status through the development of a Europe-wide network (Natura 2000). Ecosystem services, although appealing to decision makers, are not yet anchored in environmental legislation. This paper concludes that actions which target

Acknowledgments

We thank the many colleagues at the Joint Research Centre who provided data for mapping ecosystem services, in particular colleagues at the FOREST, AFOLU and SOIL actions. We are thankful to Marcus Zisenis at the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity for his comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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