Abstract

BackgroundThe European Union strives to increase protected areas of the EU terrestrial surface to 30% by year 2030, of which one third should be strictly protected. Designation of the Natura 2000 network, the backbone of nature protection in the EU, was mostly an expert-opinion process with little systematic conservation planning. The designation of the Natura 2000 network in Romania followed the same non-systematic approach, resulting in a suboptimal representation of invertebrates and plants. To help identify areas with very high biodiversity without repeating past planning missteps, we present a reproducible example of spatial prioritization using Romania’s current terrestrial Natura 2000 network and coarse-scale terrestrial species occurrence.MethodsWe used 371 terrestrial Natura 2000 Sites of Community Importance (Natura 2000 SCI), designated to protect 164 terrestrial species listed under Annex II of Habitats Directive in Romania in our spatial prioritization analyses (marine Natura 2000 sites and species were excluded). Species occurrences in terrestrial Natura 2000 sites were aggregated at a Universal Traverse Mercator spatial resolution of 1 km2. To identify priority terrestrial Natura 2000 sites for species conservation, and to explore if the Romanian Natura 2000 network sufficiently represents species included in Annex II of Habitats Directive, we used Zonation v4, a decision support software tool for spatial conservation planning. We carried out the analyses nationwide (all Natura 2000 sites) as well as separately for each biogeographic region (i.e., Alpine, Continental, Pannonian, Steppic and Black Sea).ResultsThe results of spatial prioritization of terrestrial Natura 2000 vary greatly by planning scenario. The performance of national-level planning of top priorities is minimal. On average, when 33% of the landscape of Natura 2000 sites is protected, only 20% of the distribution of species listed in Annex II of Habitats Directive are protected. As a consequence, the representation of species by priority terrestrial Natura 2000 sites is lessened when compared to the initial set of species. When planning by taxonomic group, the top-priority areas include only 10% of invertebrate distribution in Natura 2000. When selecting top-priority areas by biogeographical region, there are significantly fewer gap species than in the national level and by taxa scenarios; thusly, the scenario outperforms the national-level prioritization. The designation of strictly protected areas as required by the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 should be followed by setting clear objectives, including a good representation of species and habitats at the biogeographical region level.

Highlights

  • Protected areas, a critical tool for nature conservation strategies, are intended to ensure the longterm persistence and viability of biodiversity

  • Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) Aichi Target on Protected Areas calls for the protection of 17% of the world's terrestrial and inland water areas in key regions for biodiversity and ecosystem services (UNEP 2011), while the EU Member States seek to increase by 2030 the Natura 2000 network to 30% of which one third should be under strict protection as areas of very high biodiversity and climate value (European Commission 2020)

  • The Romanian Natura 2000 network encompasses all species and habitats listed in Habitats and Birds Directives (DG Environment 2020; Manolache et al 2017); the new EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 requires an increase from 23% to 30% of the total terrestrial country's area of which one third should be under strict protection as areas of very high biodiversity and climate value (European Commission 2020)

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Summary

Introduction

A critical tool for nature conservation strategies, are intended to ensure the longterm persistence and viability of biodiversity. These areas should support many rare, threatened, or endemic taxa, those with low mobility and high sensitivity to environmental alterations as possible (Geldmann et al 2013; Gray et al 2016; Possingham et al 2006; Rodrigues et al 2004). States around the world are guided by supranational policies such as Convention on Biological Diversity and EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, which issue ambitious objectives to increase the extent of protected areas. As a part of systematic conservation planning, customarily relies on the complementarity concept (i.e., selection of complementary areas to avoid duplication of conservation effort) and is considered an efficient instrument for identifying spatial priorities and achieving conservation goals (Margules & Pressey 2000; Pressey et al 2007)

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