Conservation of species and habitats
in Bulgaria – the process of selection
SCI – NGO support to the MoEW in
establishing NATURA2000
Andrey Kovatchev
Natura 2000 Expert, BALKANI Wildlife Society, Bulgaria
Directive 92/43 Article 4, subparagraph 1:
Each Member State propose a list of sites which host natural habitat types in Annex
I and the places which present the physical or biological factors essential for the
life and reproduction of species in Annex II
Criteria in Annex III Stage 1
• Annex I habitat: representativity; area in the site/within the country;
conservation of the structure and functions; global assessment of the
value of the site.
• Annex II species: population (size and density) of the in the site/within
the country; conservation habitat’s features and restoration possibilities;
isolation of the population present on the site in relation to the natural
range; global assessment of the value of the site.
Designation process (prior accession)
Budget: 500 000 Euro
Non systematic approach – field inventories of preliminary identified territories (CORINE Biotops Sites, protected areas, expert opinion) on 12.5% of the countries territory
Lack of division between pSCIs and pSPAs.
Inventory without mapping – filling Standard Data Forms (SDFs) on expert opinion base – very, very inaccurate!!!
At the end – based on best expert opinion identified as potential NATURA 2000 sites on 34% of the countries territory. 16 % of them studied.
DEPA project - Green Balkans Federation NGO in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and
Waters
CORINE Biotops project
Other territories Non protected territories
National Parks
Natural Reserves
Nature Parks
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Map of potential NATURA 2000 sites at the end of 2004
34% of the country’s territory
coverage of all potential sites.
16% of the country’s territory
studied by the end of 2004.
Projects financed by Bulgarian Government:
for inventory of pSCIs and coordination of this action
with other projects: Green Balkans Federation NGO,
budget: 700 000 EURO
Projects of NGOs:
Contribution of other projects with international
financing – overall more than 2 500 000 EURO
Division of work on the designation of pSCIs
• Project of NGO coalition “NATURA 2000 in Bulgaria – public contribution”, PIN MATRA
• Projects of WWF DCP in Danube basin
• GEF project “Conservation of globally important biodiversity in the Rhodope landscape”
• Project “Prime Butterfly Areas” of Butterfly Conservation Europe (Wageningen) and National Natural History Museum, PIN MATRA program
• Project of Forestry Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences“Inventory and strategy for protection of old growth forests in Bulgaria”, PIN MATRA
• Development of Brown bear action plan, coordinated by BALKANI Wildlife Society, PIN MATRA and BBI MATRA
• Development of Chamois Action Plan: 2007 -2016, implemented by Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation
• Project of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on new Bulgarian Red Data Book
• A number of smaller projects
Mapping of grasslands: mapping of existing digital
polygons – CORINE Biotops, scale 1:100 000, only part
of the pSCIs, modeling needed
Mapping of forests: using existing forest inventories scale 1:
5 000; algorithms to transfer them to NATURA 2000
habitats; 90% of the whole country’s territory
Mapping of river habitats: assessed as ine objects (length),
% of stretches occupied by a habitat, part of the country’s
territory
Inventory methods
Inventory methods
Mapping of species
Presence/absence: field mapping of exact localities or
“good” recent literature data (geographic coordinates)/
versus old and inexact data lit. data – mapping of wider
polygons from CORINE Land cover
Localities: suitable only for species with discrete
distribution – colonies, inhabiting discrete limited area
habitats etc. For others – omission mistake!!!
Inventory methods
Mapping of species
Models of suitable habitats (aim to avoid
omission mistake):
Inductive– statistically derived algorithms; in
presence of sufficient and representative
presence or presence/absence data,
statistically validated
Deductive – based on expert opinion and
algorithms, could be statistically validated
(preferred)
Inventory methods
Mapping of species
Models - verification
Verification is not validation!!!
Verification for real population by:
• Real distribution of the species: real field data
• Real population: could less then potential – natural and
anthropogenic influences, only from real field data
Simplified methods
• Number of locations
• Number of UTM grids (distribution, localities)
• Area of distribution (as polygon)
Relative population assessments: modeling and extrapolations, field
extrapolations (transect methods)
Total population: rarely achieved, very comprehensive data needed,
capture recapture, total counting, mostly for rare species
Population units: individuals (all, mature, colonies, inhabited trunks
of trees etc.)
Population assesments
Selection of sites
Expert opinion: fastest, most unsuitable – lack of systematic
approach
Systematic approach based on preliminary mapping:
1. Selection of best areas/localities for particulars species or
habitat
2. First selection of most diverse areas (number of protected
species and habitats in one place)
Real life is always mixture of approach 1 and 2
Selection of sites – big vs. small sites Large sites:
Representative – High quality criterion
Small number
Less administration, simple management, low administrative
costs
Buffer zones included
Small sites: unrepresentative, big number
administration costly, management difficult,
no buffer zones, large edge effects and impacts, impacts from
outside not under control
Administratively fragmented: Artificially unrepresentative
big number
administration costly
management difficult
Buffer zones included
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Large sites: Shadow list - missing site – bigger
gap and problem for government –
better chances to achieve final
adoption
Art. 6 (3) Assessment – difficult to
show significance of the impact –
necessary to have in to account
local impact
Small sites: Shadow list - missing site – smaller
problem for government – smaller chances
to achieve final adoption of all sites
Art. 6 (3) Assessment – easer to show
significance of the impact
Excluding: „holes“ where no habitat
type/ species has been
found
omitting private property
wherever possible
traffic facilities
Selection of sites – big vs. small sites
Till October 2006 - submitted scientific proposals
for pSCIs covering 35% of country’s land territory
October –November 2006 - working group initiated by
NGOs:
•Participants – NGOs, key experts, Ministry of
Environment and Waters, Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry
•Tasks: to complete sufficient scientific list of pSCIs
according to the criteria of Stage 2
•Results – Optimization of submitted documentation to
225 sites occupying 28,6 % of country’s land territory
Comparison - version 20 October (35%) and version 20 November
(28,6%)
NGOs submitted proposals - Green Balkans Federation, BALKANI Wildlife Society, WWF – DCP
Bulgaria, Center for Environmental Information and Education, Association of Parks
2007
Political process of designation of NATURA 2000 network
Delayed decision of the Council of Ministers
• The decision on list of pSCIs and pSPAs is made on 15 February 2007 –
one and a half months after EU accession date
•The decision is made available to public on 5 March 2007.
•The decision is to cut both list of sites leading to drastic insufficiencies in
both lists.
•The decision is justified on purely economic grounds. It stipulates future
exclusion from borders of SPAs and SACs of all areas with development
demands and spatial plans appeared to date of issuing of designation
order.
List of pSCIs – excluded (red) and adopted (green)
2007
Every week protests for NATURA 2000 in
front of the Council of Ministers Political umbrella…
Soap opera
Coins to pay
EU sanctions
Species left
outside of
NATURA
2000
2007
•Written statements and submission in
Brussels, meetings with representatives of EU
Commission and with the European
Commissioner Stavros Dimas (April
2007)(with support of international networks)
- network so week that even biogeographical
seminar could not be started
•Number of other street protest for
protection of NATURA sites and
against different threats
•Campaign within government –
letters, position papers, meetings
with Ministers
After 1 year of an NGO campaign almost all proposed sites
adopted in December 2007 and submitted in EU – SPAs and pSCIs
Overlapping between pSCIs (28,6) and SPAs (23,4)–together 34,5%
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2007
Political process of designation of NATURA 2000 network
• Final differences – scientific proposal – political
decision (despite 1 year delay)
• pSCIs – missing site “Rila – buffer” – question left
to be decided by the biogeographical seminars
Thank you for your attention
Andrey Kovatchev
BALKANI Wildlife Society
www.balkani.org
