Minister Schouten informs parliament on Natura 2000. Chris Backes and Marieke Kaajan contributed to report
Nitrogen problem
In the quest to find a solution to the nitrogen problem in the Netherlands and to achieve European agreed nature objectives, Minister Schouten of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality commissioned research to investigate whether we could delete or merge a number of nature areas. One of the reports was done by engineering company Arcadis and the legal part of that research was carried out by Professor Chris Backes, professor of environmental law at Utrecht University, and Marieke Kaajan, lawyer at Envir.
They had bad news for the minister, who has now also reported this in a letter to the Lower House.
Options are very limited
The study explores the European legal frameworks for changes to the protection regime of Natura 2000 areas. The researchers find that the possibilities for changing or redistributing conservation objectives across Natura 2000 areas are very limited. Merging or rearranging areas is possible under strict conditions. The researchers have not found any practical examples that give cause to scrap conservation goals. According to the researchers, the Netherlands should do even more on some points to comply with all the obligations under the guidelines.
In addition to Arcadis, bureau Witteveen + Bos also came to the same conclusions in a recommendation to the minister. Both studies ran in the same time.