Europe Passes Controversial Measure to Restore Nature

The European Parliament has mar­gin­ally approved a con­tentious leg­isla­tive pro­posal of the European Commission to restore and pro­tect nature in its mem­ber states.

In what has been a fierce bat­tle between right- and left-wing polit­i­cal groups in the European Parliament, the new leg­is­la­tion received 336 par­lia­men­tary votes in favor and 300 against, while 13 mem­bers of the par­lia­ment (MEPs) abstained from vot­ing.

The ​‘Nature Restoration Law’ is a core pil­lar of the E.U.’s 2030 Biodiversity Strategy, a set of rec­om­men­da­tions tar­geted to restore Europe’s degraded ecosys­tems.

According to the com­mis­sion, more than 80 per­cent of the habi­tats in Europe are in poor con­di­tion. The com­mis­sion also noted that every Euro invested in restora­tion would return between €8 and €38 in ecosys­tem ser­vices.

Under the new bill, char­ac­ter­ized by the com­mis­sion as ​“the first con­ti­nent-wide, com­pre­hen­sive law of its kind,” the E.U. mem­ber states must intro­duce mea­sures to restore nature on at least 20 per­cent of their land and sea by 2030.

Furthermore, by 2050, the mea­sures must be expanded to cover all ecosys­tems in need of restora­tion.

A day before the vot­ing, hun­dreds of farm­ers demon­strated in front of the European Parliament, call­ing on the MEPs to reject the new law. On the other hand, cli­mate activists, includ­ing Greta Thunberg, urged the MEPs to pass the law.

The Fisheries and Agriculture com­mit­tees of the European Parliament had pre­vi­ously rejected the bill. At the same time, it failed to gar­ner the nec­es­sary major­ity in the Environment com­mit­tee to move for­ward.

As a result, and accord­ing to stan­dard pro­ce­dure, the leg­is­la­tion was punted to the parliament’s ple­nary vote with the rec­om­men­da­tion to be scrapped. However, it man­aged to receive approval from the major­ity of European Parliament mem­bers.

“It’s a huge social vic­tory,” César Luena, a cen­ter-left MEP from Spain in charge of the pro­posal, said. ​“This is a law on behalf of nature. It’s not a law against any per­son what­so­ever.”

The new bill met strong oppo­si­tion from the European Parliament’s right-wing polit­i­cal groups, such as the cen­ter-right European People’s Party (EPP), the biggest law­maker group of the European Parliament, and the far-right Identity and Democracy Group.

“Less land for farm­ers, less sea for fish­er­men, less activ­ity for busi­nesses, and fewer European prod­ucts and jobs for our cit­i­zens,” said Rosanna Conte, an Italian MEP from the Identity and Democracy group. ​“These are the heavy reper­cus­sions of the pro­pos­als con­tained in a reg­u­la­tion per­me­ated with ide­ol­ogy and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive for nature itself.”

However, the parliament’s right-wing front suf­fered cracks, with some EPP mem­bers break­ing away from the group’s posi­tion to sup­port the pro­posed reg­u­la­tion.

“I can­not, in good con­science, good faith, vote against this law,” said Frances Fitzgerald, an Irish MEP and the vice-chair of the EPP. ​“We should have a con­struc­tive approach.”

The European Parliament finally agreed to a watered-down ver­sion of the orig­i­nal law, with amend­ments to remove the restora­tion of European peat­lands and delay the law’s appli­ca­tion until an offi­cial assess­ment of European food secu­rity has been car­ried out.

Farming lobby Copa-Cogeca said the law remained ​“fun­da­men­tally ill-pre­pared, lacks a bud­get and will remain unim­ple­mentable for farm­ers and for­est own­ers.”

International envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions wel­comed the new reg­u­la­tion as a sig­nif­i­cant step toward pro­tect­ing Europe’s nature.

“This vote shows that there is still hope to restore and grow what’s left,” said Špela Bandelj, Greenpeace’s Central and Eastern Europe bio­di­ver­sity project man­ager. ​“As another unprece­dented heat­wave grips Europe, it’s clear that to sur­vive cli­mate break­down and ensure food sup­plies, we’ll need nature on our side.”

Next, The par­lia­ment will nego­ti­ate with the mem­ber states to thrash out the regulation’s pro­vi­sions and final­ize the text.

After the reg­u­la­tion comes into force, the E.U. coun­tries will be expected to sub­mit national restora­tion plans to the Commission within two years.

• The Guardian
• CNN