At the end of February 2016 we participated in the “III European Workshop on Environmental Crime: Illegal Habitat Destruction”, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Members of BirdLife partners from EU states, The European Federation of Associations for Hunting & Conservation (FACE), employees of the nature protection inspectorate of the Member States and other interested parties attended this workshop. The workshop was organized by the European Network against Environmental Crime (ENEC) founded in 2008 by BirdLife International. Association BIOM is BirdLife affiliate partner for Croatia since 2013.
The aim of the session was to identify common barriers for prevention, detection and monitoring of illegal activities causing a significant deterioration in protected areas, and to provide details on priority actions and measures that could be taken forward within the EU.
Participants worked in groups to consider the following:
1. Exploitation of the biological resources through land management (for example forestry, agriculture and game management)
2. Exploitation of other natural resources (water, minerals)
3. Urbanism and infrastructure
The results of the meeting were recommendations on how to deal with habitat destruction and these will be submitted to the Habitats and Ornis Committee, to the Nature and Biodiversity Units within Directorate General Environment, to the EU Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL), to the BirdLife Birds and Habitats Directives Task Force and to the expert group on management of Natura 2000.
