Natura 2000 Management inside protected areas – the case of Collserola Nature Park

Today we want to tackle a common challenge for many protected areas in Europe: the management of Natura 2000 sites located within their boundaries.

Natura 2000 network was built, during the last 25 years, over the foundations of the Habitats and Birds directives and it is designed to strictly protect threatened species and natural habitats present in the over 27.000 designated sites across the EU. As the protection of endangered species and outstanding habitats at European level has often the same relevance at regional and local level, Natura 2000 sites are frequently located within the perimeters of national or regional protected area, sometimes resulting on a full overlap*. 

While the overall scope of Natura 2000 and the site conservation measures are primarily set to address very specific elements, protected area’s missions are targeting more varied matters such as the social and economic development of the territory, land use, natural resources and economic and leisure activities management, without leaving aside the protection of species and habitats, either included or excluded in the Nature Directives.

This might often lead to a complex management of different conservation priorities for the same site and a lack of integration of Natura 2000 objectives within the protected area’s management plans.

In this video interview, Francesc Llimona, biologist at Collserola Nature Park in Barcelona, describes the current integration of Natura 2000 objectives in the management plan of the park, the solutions found and the challenges the park is currently facing in this sense.

Together with this video interview, we are pleased to present you the newly developed section on Natura 2000 at EUROPARC Federation website. In it you will find up-to-date information on different resources, case studies, events and much more on the Natura 2000 scheme in Europe. We hope this can become, also thanks to your support and further case studies, a useful reference, helping managers to strengthen the integration of Natura 2000 priorities within the wider Protected Areas management plans.

* For more information on the overlap between Protected Areas and Natura 2000 sites, have a look on the report “An inquiry on the relationship between EUROPARC members and NATURA 2000 sites”. Download the Full Report or its Executive Summary.