Nature and biodiversity

Overview

We all depend on nature for our food, air, water, energy and raw materials. Nature and biodiversity make life possible, provide health and social benefits and drive our economy. Healthy ecosystems can also help us cope with the impacts of climate change.
However, natural ecosystems and their vital services are under pressure from urban sprawl, intensive agriculture, pollution, invasive species and climate change. EU nature legislation, most notably the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive, forms the backbone of biodiversity policy and the legal basis for our nature protection network.

Over the last 25 years we have built the largest coordinated network of protected areas in the world, which is one of the outstanding EU achievements. Known as Natura 2000, it stretches across all Member States and currently covers over 18% of the EU’s land area and more than 6% of its seas territories. The Natura 2000 biogeographical process encourages cooperation and makes sure that protection measures can be tailored to suit specific regional needs. We also work to protect species facing particular threats, including through an EU initiative on pollinators.
But protected natural areas cannot thrive in isolation. We have a strategy to connect these areas using green infrastructure to restore ecosystem services and allow species to thrive across their entire habitat. To protect native biodiversity, we also seek to address the problem of invasive alien species. Natural Capital Accounting provides an approach for quantifying our natural capital and integrating this into decision making.