Nature fund set for axe by

By Véronique Vallières

Date: 30/09/04

THE European Commission intends to axe the EU's only fund dedicated to nature conservation, as part of changes to the environment budget.

LIFE-Nature is a fund specifically devoted to maintaining or restoring wildlife habitats to preserve threatened plants and animals.

The EU has allocated l300 million to the programme in 2000-04, which has to be used in conjunction with national funds.

Generally the EU money can only fund up to half the cost of a project but in exceptional circumstances, to salvage a species or habitat, the ceiling is raised to three-quarters.

But the Commission decided on Wednesday (29 September) to propose a new programme, LIFE+, which would become the EU's sole financial instrument for the environment from 2007.

It would replace all previously separate funding programmes, while it would continue to support the priorities of the sixth Environment Action Programme (2002-12).

Combating climate change and halting the decline in biodiversity are included in these priorities.

But some environmental NGOs attacked DG Environment's decision to propose the scrapping of LIFE-Nature. Claire Papazoglou, the head of EU policy at BirdLife, which fears that habitat conservation will be squeezed out by other concerns, said: "It is astonishing that the Commission plans to cut this successful programme while maintaining that nature conservation is a top environmental priority."

Tony Long, director of the European policy office of the World Wide Fund for Nature, echoed these concerns, saying that the efforts made so far by LIFE-Nature should not be lost.

Article reports on the plans of the European Commission to axe the EU's fund dedicated to nature conservation, LIFE-Nature, as part of changes to the environment budget. In the future nature conservation will fall under a single environmental financial instrument, LIFE plus.

European Commission: DG Environment: Funding http://ec.europa.eu/comm/environment/funding/intro_en.htm

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