Supplementary memorandum from the Herpetological
Conservation Trust
Further to our written evidence of 29 April
and oral evidence presented on 20 May, I offer Supplementary Evidence.
This is to clarify my answer given to the Committee with regard
to Q188 in the Manuscript of the Oral evidence session.
In this section I refer to our interest in further
developing a concept within the European Union "Habitats
Directive". I gave insufficient elaboration. The concept
that we are looking at is "Favourable Conservation Status"
(defined in Article 1 of the Directive, and its central role to
the interpretation of the Directive being given in Article 2(2)).
Its importance is that as a concept enshrined in European law,
we feel that this gives guidance as to how the European legislation
should be implemented. By this token, we suggest that it could
usefully guide enforcement agencies and prosecutors in assessing
the significance of a crime. Within the Directive this concept
is explicitly referred to in directing the Member States' "licensing
authorities" as to when they are allowed to derogate from
the provisions of the Directive.
We have acknowledged that it may be difficult
to develop working definitions for the concept and suggest that
this should be a role for the Biodiversity Action Plans (BAP).
We therefore see BAP as having a useful guiding role in determining
species and habitats for which robust enforcement of legislation
is particularly important for ensuring effective conservation.
June 2004
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