Forum des Gestionnaires: Natura 2000 monitoring and assessment for better management
The Forum des Gestionnaires (Managers’ Forum) is an annual technical event organised for nature professionals by our member the French Biodiversity Agency. It aims to promote experience and knowledge sharing, determine a collective definition of challenges, and create discussions on specific topics. This year’s event focused on monitoring and assessment of the Natura 2000 network, bringing together over 250 people in Paris on 15 November.
Explaining the theme
Knowing whether implementation of a management document or plan has produced the desired effect on the natural environments is a topic of interest for managers (who wonder whether to continue actions or to adapt them), policymakers (who must account for whether or not they have made the right choices), and financial partners (who are looking to determine whether the assigned budgets have been spent effectively). Assessment is therefore a key component of managing a Natura 2000 site. It ensures the relevance and consistency of actions over time, on a wide range of scales (site, regional, coastline, national, biogeographical) and can be used to adapt management over time.
For the Natura 2000 network, the issue is also a matter of EU commitment. Member States are committed to maintaining or restoring the good conservation status of species and habitats of Community interest. This obligation has been set out in the French Environment Code.
Enriching and diverse presentations
The presentations throughout the day challenged and fed into the various projects developed to support professionals from across the French network (habitat and species conservation status assessment guides, methodological guides for the development of natural space management plans, catalogue of indicators, dashboards, etc.). The day especially focused on monitoring conservation status, monitoring and assessing management measures, and adaptive management.
Please find more information on the event and its outcomes here.
Eurosite management planning
Earlier this year, Eurosite has also set up a management planning working group. In case you are interested in joining this group, please do not hesitate to contact us.