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About the Project
One of three projects implemented by Ministry of Environmental Protection and Physical Planning (MEPPP), chosen to be co-financed by the European Commission LIFE III Fund in 2002., is the project “Building-up the National Ecological Network as a Part of the Pan-European Ecological Network & NATURA 2000 Network” (project acronym CRO-NEN).
Project beneficiary was MEPPP with OIKON ltd as a partner organisation. European Centre for Nature Conservation (ECNC) participates in the Project as a consulting agency.
According to the bilateral agreement between MEPPP and State Institute for Nature Protection (SINP), implementation of the project had been transferred to the SINP IN December 2003. In February 2004 Ministry of Culture, that in the meantime became responsible for nature protection in Croatia, entrusted SINP with complete implementation of the project.
Implementation of this project is one of the obligations Croatia has to meet in the accession process to the European Union.
Concept of Ecological network represents implementation of EU legislation according to the following guidelines: Conservation of wild birds (Council Directive 79/409/EEC) and Conservation of natural habitats and wild fauna and flora (Council Directive 92/43/EEC). Based on these Directives, state members of EU are obliged to determine the areas important for conservation of threatened European species and habitats. These areas then become part of the EU ecological network NATURA2000.
New nature protection law (NN 162/03) defines National ecological network (NEN) as network of nationally and internationally important areas. NEN, once established, will be included in PEEN, that is developed by European Centre for Nature Conservation. Within the project, ECNC is coordinating three workshops with the purpose of training Croatian governmental “nature protection” staff on the issues of ecological network.
Very important component of this project is the establishment of National Biodiversity Monitoring Programme which will include a wide variety of associates-expert and amateur. This will ensure systematic gathering of data and biodiversity monitoring in Croatia.
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