The European Commission marked the opening of the International Year of Biodiversity with a paper setting out future options for biodiversity policy. Despite past efforts, species extinctions are continuing at alarming rates, and a new vision is required to halt these losses. The EU’s goal of stopping animal and plant extinctions by 2010 has not been reached. Now more action is planned – for proper long-term protection of biodiversity by 2020.

The Communication adopted proposes a long-term (2050) vision for biodiversity, with four options for a mid-term (2020) target – an essential step along the way towards reaching the vision. In this vision, biodiversity and the ecosystem services we get for free from nature are preserved, valued and, insofar as possible, restored for their intrinsic value, enabling them to support economic prosperity and human well-being, and averting any catastrophic changes linked to biodiversity loss.

In July 2009, the Executive Directive of the European Environment Agency warned about the serious pressure under which the european biodiversity is, and the grave risks that faces.

Four levels of ambition are proposed for a mid-term (2020) target to turn the vision into reality:

• Option 1: Significantly reducing the rate of loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU by 2020.
• Option 2: Halting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU by 2020.
• Option 3: Halting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU by 2020 and restoring them as far as possible.
• Option 4: Halting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU by 2020 and restoring them as far as possible, and stepping up the EU's contribution to averting global biodiversity loss.

The vision and target will allow the EU to build a strong common position ahead of the upcoming international negotiations on a new global post-2010 biodiversity vision and target, which will be held in Nagoya, Japan in the autumn.

The paper also describes the extent of the biodiversity crisis and the status of biodiversity in the EU and globally, and highlights the main drivers of biodiversity loss and its implications for the environment, the economy and for society as a whole. It outlines the main achievements and shortcomings of the current policy and makes the link to the international negotiations.

Europe's nature is protected by two key pieces of legislation, the Birds Directive,  which recently celebrated its 30 years of life and was the first legislation on environmental matters in the Union, and the Habitats Directive. The latter obliges Member States to maintain a number of designated habitat types and species at favourable status at selected sites agreed with the Commission.

Next steps

Thorough discussions with Member States, European institutions and other stakeholders will now follow. These discussions will be launched at a high-level European conference on the "Post-2010 Biodiversity Vision and Target" hosted by Spain in Madrid on 26-27 January 2010 and will continue with the aim of reaching a high level agreement in the months to come. Based on this agreement and further work, the Commission will present, by the end of the year, a new EU biodiversity strategy aimed at reaching the agreed target.