The European Union needs to halt biodiversity loss by 2020, says the report voted today in the European Parliament's Environment Committee. The report "Our life insurance, our natural capital: a  Biodiversity Strategy to 2020", drafted by Dutch Liberal Democrat MEP Gerben-Jan Gebrandy (D66, Netherlands), defines significant steps towards protecting biodiversity in the European Union and globally.

The report calls for more efforts at biodiversity protection, such as restoring damaged ecosystems and strengthening of protection of species and habitats as current policies have largely failed. The report underscores the need for sustainable fisheries, forestry, agriculture, cohesion policy, industry and transport. It also urges the EU executive to integrate biodiversity in all EU policies having a potential impact. 

Key points in the report include:
• cross-compliance rules which cover relevant EU legislation,
• improvement to the effectiveness of agro-environmental measures,
• mobilisation of necessary financial resources including the structural and cohesion funds,
• encourage investment by innovative sources of financing, in both the public and private sectors,
• more support for the biodiversity targets in the next Multiannual Financial Framework.

Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, rapporteur and vice-chairman of the Environment committee handling the issue, said:
"By adopting my report, the Environment Committee clearly embraces the European Strategy to stop the loss of biodiversity in 2020. The European Parliament is even more ambitious in willing to restore more than 15% of degraded ecosystems. An important step has been set with the adoption of the so called ´no net loss´-principle at project level. This will have a huge influence on industry to take biodiversity concerns into account.
Another very strong political signal sent by the Environment Committee today is the welcoming of the proposals of the Commission on the Common Agricultural Policy", he added.

ALDE MEP Catherine Bearder (LibDem, UK), drafted the opinion for Parliament´s Regional Policy Committee added:
"Biodiversity loss and overconsumption of natural resources are problems affecting all our regions and have a big impact on the lives of all EU citizens. Local and regional governments must consider these threats in their planning policies and the EU must make sure that environmental proofing is built into Structural and Cohesion Funding."