Wild Europe is a recently established initiative to promote a coordinated strategy for the protection and restoration of wilderness and large natural habitat areas in Europe. Currently chaired by the director of natural environment at the European Commission, it brings together representatives from IUCN, WWF, UNESCO, PANParks Foundation, Europarc Federation and Council of Europe among other organizations.

A resolution calling for improved protection of remaining wilderness areas is currently being jointly developed, to be presented to the Commission as part of an approach that seeks to place wilderness and natural habitat areas more centrally in EC biodiversity strategy.

In May 2009 in Prague the Wilderness and Large Natural Habitat Areas in Europe Conference was held.  240 people attended from over 40 countries, governments, nature agencies and conservation NGO’s, in addition to academics and representatives of agriculture, forestry and business sectors.

Of Europes land mass, less than 1% features wilderness, and much of this is facing imminent threats.  The Minister for the Environment from the Czech Republic: “Europe should be proud and treasure the wilderness it still has, but it needs to do more”.

In the last 40 years biodiversity has decreased by 25%, caused mainly by the destruction of habitats, pollution, overpopulation, overexploitation, invasive species and the increasing influence of climate change on weather systems etc.  For the majority of the world these changes are immeasurable, however in Europe the legacy of pioneering nature conservationists is the ability to measure and note changes in the nature conservation value of different land uses and individual habitats.  In the EU at present 60% of the most valuable habitats have an unfavourable conservation status.  As Ladislav Miko said “the commitment by governments to halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010 seems increasingly out of reach and Europe will have to re-double its efforts if it is to come close to reaching those targets.  European wilderness is the building block for a greener Europe.”

Using the IUNC classification of a wilderness (a substantial region largely untoughed by the hand of man), Europe contains several remaining invaluable wild areas, found predominantly in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Ukrain and Western Russia.

The key development to come out of the Prague conference was the need for a Pan-European approach towards protecting wilderness areas, in particular using the highest level of protection of remaining pristine wilderness areas.

For more inofrmation visit www.wildeurope.org

Please refer any enquiries Toby Aykroyd on tobyaykroyd@btconnect.com