Fairy ring in Augustów Primeval Forest, Poland. Wikicommons/Sławomir Duda-Klimaszewski. Some rights reserved.With human activity responsible for both dangerous levels of damage to natural habitats in Europe and the onset of the biggest mass extinction event in over 65 million years, we should be asking what more we can do to protect Europe’s most vulnerable plants and species, not assessing rules that are there to protect the environment against a set of outdated jobs and growth objectives.
Unfortunately, the European Commission currently seems to be intent on the latter.
As part of its deregulation drive – known as the ‘Better Regulation’ agenda, the EU’s executive body has put the spotlight on two little-known but vital EU nature laws by holding a review of the Birds and Habitats Directives – a ‘Fitness Check’ in Brussels parlance.
