The impact of the economic crisis on the implementation of the EU Nature Directives in Greece: An expert-based view

© 2018 Elsevier GmbH stablished under the European Union (EU), the thirty-year trans-national network, Natura 2000, is considered one of the largest biodiversity conservation frameworks worldwide. The global financial crisis has afflicted European economies since 2008 and has not only caused radical changes to the economic development but has also resulted in major implications on nature conservation activities in one of the weakest EU member states, however a biodiversity hotspot, Greece. The present research constitutes a broad-based assessment of the effects of the current economic crisis on the application of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives by the Greek state for the first time. By applying an expert elicitation method, Policy Delphi, we attempt to address the impact of the crisis on the administrative levels, competent authorities and procedural frames of the national protected area system, as perceived by 38 Greek key stakeholders and experts on the topic. An evaluation of the practices and obligations of 4 Management Bodies of the Greek protected area system was conducted to get an insight of the financial consequences on their operation. The structured and participatory approach followed in this study, allowed a systematic collection of experts’ transdisciplinary judgments on the state of the Greek Natura 2000 network in terms of implementation, management, administration, monitoring and legislation. With a strong tradition in managing its high nature value in a centralized way, in the face of the economic crisis, implementation challenges of the Greek state concerning Natura 2000 have been enlarged. According to a substantial part of the Greek conservation community that participated in the survey, many enforcement obstacles are considered, either direct or indirect consequences of the economic crisis, while some are inherent to the lack of a national comprehensive conservation strategy and not necessarily attributed to the austerity. However, the lack of national structural strength, as illustrated by the respondents, rather than the funding size proved to be an important cause of vulnerability for the Greek network. Based on the findings of this study we propose recommendations for improvements that align economic with conservation interests and measures that can substantially counteract the negative impacts of the economic austerity on the enforcement of nature conservation.

Jaar van publicatie:2019