Connectivity in the field of national legislation

Connectivity and Legislation

Over the past few decades, it has become clear that nature conservation policies cannot be based solely on the designation of protected natural areas. There is a broad consensus that these policies alone are not effective because they do not affect the integrity and continuity of ecological processes and the flows of organisms, matter and energy that take place in the territory. Therefore, how has the concept of connectivity been incorporated into national legislation?

Thus, currently, preventing and, where appropriate, restoring the loss of ecological connectivity of the territory, understood as the capacity of the territory to allow the movement of organisms between the tiles with resources and the use of space in an appropriate way for each of the species, is one of the main challenges to be faced in order to stop the loss of biodiversity.

In this sense, this new paradigm is intertwined with the concept of connectivity, defined as the extent to which the landscape allows species to use space effectively to carry out their life cycles, and that we have developed in another post on this blog: https://ideasmedioambientales.com/ecologia-del-paisaje/

Processes and legislation

In addition to its relationship with biodiversity, connectivity is related to the maintenance of other ecological processes, such as nutrient flows and surface water flows.

In this regard, the conservation of biodiversity in Spain is based, in large part, on Law 42/2007, of December 13, on Natural Heritage and Biodiversity.

This Act is initially established in the preamble itself,

“Ecological corridors are incorporated into environmental planning or Natural Resource Management Plans, giving a priority role to livestock routes and mountain areas. These ecological corridors must participate in the establishment of the European and community network of biological corridors defined by the Pan-European Strategy for Ecological and Landscape Diversity and by the European Territorial Strategy itself. In particular, autonomous communities may use these ecological corridors, or the definition of mountain areas, in order to improve the ecological coherence, functionality and connectivity of the Natura 2000 Network.” This idea is later developed in other articles of the law itself, such as Article 20 and 21.

“Article 20. Minimum content of management plans.

Natural Resource Management Plans shall have at least the following content:

..

g) Identification of measures to ensure ecological connectivity in the territorial area subject to planning.

Article 21. Ecological corridors and mountain areas.

Public Administrations shall provide, in their environmental planning or in their Natural Resource Management Plans, mechanisms to achieve ecological connectivity of the territory, establishing or re-establishing corridors, in particular between Red Natura 2000 protected areas and between those natural areas of singular relevance to biodiversity. To this end, a priority role will be given to river courses, livestock routes, mountain areas and other elements of the territory, linear and continuous, or that act as connecting points, regardless of whether they have the status of protected natural areas”.

On the other hand, the concepts of connectivity and corridors are included in the strategic framework of green infrastructure, set out in Article 15.

The Spanish legal system incorporates the concept of Green Infrastructure in Law 33/2015, of September 21, amending Law 42/2007, of December 13, on Natural Heritage and Biodiversity.

This Act introduces a new chapter III, in title I of Law 42/2007, relating to the State Strategy for Green Infrastructure and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration. This new chapter complies with the European Commission's 2013 Communication on Green Infrastructure, and incorporates some of the objectives of the European Union Strategy on Biodiversity until 2020.

Article 15. The Strategic Framework for Green Infrastructure and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration.

1. To ensure the ecological connectivity and restoration of the Spanish territory, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment, with the collaboration of the autonomous communities through the State Commission for Natural Heritage and Biodiversity, and other ministries involved, will develop, within a maximum period of three years from the entry into force of this law, a State Strategy for Green Infrastructure, and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration, which will incorporate an appropriate cartography that allows us to visualize Graphically the same

Article 47. Network coherence and connectivity.

In order to improve the ecological coherence and connectivity of the Natura 2000 Network, the Administrations, taking into account the provisions of Article 15, shall promote the conservation of ecological corridors and the management of those elements of the landscape and terrestrial and marine areas that are essential or of paramount importance for migration, geographical distribution and genetic exchange between populations of species of wild fauna and flora, taking into account the future impacts of climate change.

Green infrastructure

Finally, the National Strategy for Green Infrastructure and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration approved, by Order PCM/735/2021, of July 9.

As indicated in the document itself, the basic objective of the State Strategy for Green Infrastructure and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration is to conserve biodiversity.

To achieve this, not only must those spaces that house the greatest biodiversity be delimited and protected, they must also be carried out conservation actions that consider the entire territory as a system including the management of the territorial fabric and the set of activities of local human populations, that is, the management of ecological processes, both natural and cultural (Pineda et al., 2010). More than 30 years of scientific work show that improving or increasing connectivity between landscapes or habitats is useful for conserving biodiversity.

In this regard, one of the objectives of Green Infrastructure is to ensure the connectivity of fauna and flora populations to contribute to their long-term conservation. Therefore, when planning IV, the degree of connectivity must be quantified. Therefore, The connectivity and the presence of runners is a fundamental part of this strategy.

Later, in the Methodological guide for the identification of the elements of Green Infrastructure in Spain, the methodology for establishing corridors is established. Thus, theThe characterization of preferred corridors or routes for the movement of each species will be carried out by calculating the densities of paths of minimum cost between their distribution points, established on the basis of the information of the resistance layer defined for each of the species.

Other initiatives to highlight at the national level would be, on the one hand, the project on the evaluation of fragmentation caused by transport infrastructures in Spain, of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (now MITERD), as well as the “Wild Highways” project carried out by WWF, also at the national level, both in forest environments.

The Defragmentation Strategy for Habitats Affected by Linear Transportation Infrastructures (EDHILT) has a scope of state action, and focuses on reducing habitat fragmentation caused by ILTs in operation (roads and railways), but always taking into account that the documents, tools and conclusions derived from it may be applicable to new ILTs that are built in the future. The fundamental objective is to reduce the effects of habitat fragmentation caused by linear transport infrastructures, in particular roads and railways, that are in operation in Spanish territory

The second of these, the “Wild Highways” project This is a novel proposal for the main ecological corridors whose restoration and maintenance must be guaranteed in peninsular Spain, based on the report “Wild Highways: Proposal of WWF Spain for a Strategic Network of Ecological Corridors between Red Natura 2000 spaces, based on the Studio for the identification of connectivity networks between forest areas of the Natura 2000 Network in Spain, by the authors: Santiago Saura Martínez de Toda, María Cruz Mateo Sánchez, Begoña de la Fuente Martín and Aitor Gastón González, from the year 2016.

Forest masses have been taken as core areas, including different structures, covers and degree of development, from scrub to dense forests. In this way, a greater range of animal species, associated with both developed forests and more open forest areas, would be included. With regard to the species to be considered, mammals associated with forest habitats have been taken as a study group.

Finally comment at the regional level that some autonomous communities have a greater development in terms of legislation or management of connectivity in their territory, such as the Master Plan for the Improvement of Ecological Connectivity in Andalusia, the identification of ecological corridors in Murcia and the Basque Country, or the Green Infrastructure Program of Catalonia 2017-2021. Many other communities are working to develop strategies in this regard.

Conclusions

Therefore, we can conclude that, as has become evident in recent years, based on the approval of these plans and strategies related to connectivity and green infrastructures, nature conservation policies and therefore studies on the effects of fauna or vegetation in particular cannot be restricted to the study of protected or higher-value natural areas, and the connections that exist between these spaces, as well as the structure of the landscape that allows movements and the use of appropriate space for species so that they can carry out their life cycles effectively.

At Ideas MedioAmbiental, we have been incorporating this vision into the different environmental studies we carry out for some time, incorporating specific analyses of landscape ecology, connectivity, fragmentation and barrier effect.

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