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EU states push past opposition to adopt landmark nature restoration law

2024 03 02T100324Z 1250822465 RC2KU2A95TLB RTRMADP 3 EUROPE FARMERS SPAIN FIRES 1718623773 - Moldova Invest

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EU states push past opposition to adopt landmark nature restoration law

EU states push past opposition to adopt landmark nature restoration law. The law contains mandatory targets and obligations not only to preserve but also to restore natural habitats.

In northern Spain’s Asturias region near the village of Setienes, trees with trunks blackened by forest fires are visible following an earlier outbreak of wildfires on August 24, 2023. European Union member countries have overcome opposition to approve a groundbreaking law on nature restoration, requiring them to rejuvenate at least one-fifth of the bloc’s land and sea by 2030.

Twenty out of the 27 members of the European Council voted in favor of the legislation on Monday, achieving the two-thirds majority needed for passage. The adoption of these environmental regulations occurred despite strong resistance from several states. Belgium abstained from the vote, while the environment ministers of Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden voted against the law during a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

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This law, set to become one of the EU’s most significant environmental policies, was ultimately approved after Austria’s environment minister, Leonore Gewessler of the Greens party, unexpectedly voted in favor. This decision contradicted Vienna’s earlier indication of opposition and sparked outrage among Gewessler’s conservative coalition partners, including Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party.

“Today we send a signal: Our nature has earned our protection!” she wrote on X.

However, Nehammer said his government would file a complaint at the European court against an “unlawful” vote.

Belgium, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the dispute would not affect the legality of the vote.

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“It is our duty to respond to the urgency of the collapse of biodiversity in Europe, but also to enable the European Union to meet its international commitments. The European delegation will be able to go to the next COP with its head held high,” said Alain Maron, climate minister of the government of the Brussels-Capital Region.

The regulation passed on Monday includes legally binding targets and obligations for nature restoration in a variety of ecosystems from terrestrial to marine.

“The regulation aims to mitigate climate change and the effects of natural disasters. It will help the EU to fulfil its international environmental commitments, and to restore European nature,” the European Council said in a statement.

It said the regulation lists commitments for member states to take measures to restore habitats when they are deemed in poor condition, with at least 90 percent of those habitats obliged to be restored by 2050.

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More than 80 percent of European habitats are considered to be in poor condition.

Additionally, it encompasses measures to prevent substantial degradation of areas and safeguard declining insect pollinators in Europe. Specific to ecosystems, the law pledges to plant at least three billion additional trees across the EU by 2030.

Member states are required to submit national restoration plans to the commission, and a review of the law’s implementation and impacts is scheduled for 2033.

A coalition of non-governmental organizations supportive of the law, including the Swiss-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF), hailed its adoption as “a significant triumph for Europe’s nature and its people.”


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