European Red List of Habitats : Part 2. Terrestrial and freshwater habitats

Abstract

The first ever European Red List of Habitats reviews the current status of all natural and semi-natural terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats and highlights the pressures they face. Using a modified version of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems categories and criteria, it covers the EU28, plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the Balkan countries and their neighbouring seas. Over 230 terrestrial and freshwater habitats were assessed. The European Red List of Habitats provides an entirely new and all embracing tool to review commitments for environmental protection and restoration within the EU2020 Biodiversity Strategy. In addition to the assessment of threat, a unique set of information underlies the Red List for every habitat: from a full description to distribution maps, images, links to other classification systems, details of occurrence and trends in each country and lists of threats with information on restoration potential. All of this is publicly available in PDF and database format (see links below), so the Red List can be used for a wide range of analysis. The Red List complements the data collected on Annex I habitat types through Article 17 reporting as it covers a much wider set of habitats than those legally protected under the Habitats Directive.