Estonia pressing on with its nature restoration program despite EU law stalling

The Council of the European Union at the last minute, declined to affirm the European Union's nature restoration law. Estonia aims to fulfill similar objectives regardless of the regulation's fate, the Ministry of Climate says.
The purpose of the EU law is to restore Europe's forests, meadows, rivers, lakes, and other ecosystems which are currently in a poor state.
While the European Parliament had already approved the regulation a month ago, it lost member state support before being due for its confirmation in the Council of the EU on Monday.
Antti Tooming, a climate ministry deputy secretary-general, said: "The fact that the regulation was not confirmed at the council is extraordinary, but in a negative sense. this should have just been a procedural matter."
Aleksei Lotman, an environmental expert at the Estonian Fund for Nature (Eestimaa Looduse Fond), said if the regulation remains on the shelf, this will prove bad both for biodiversity and for EU credibility.
While it was Hungary which changed its mind at the last minute, it had already proven controversial before that, and the lack of general support made Hungary's move possible.
Lotman said: "Even those countries that we have considered progressive on environmental matters – such as Finland and Sweden – did not support the regulation, due to their timber lobbies."
"Their positions have been, to say the least, foolish," Lotman added.
Estonia still backs the regulation and is already doing much to implement at the domestic level what would have been put in place by the regulation had it passed, Tooming said.
"This doesn't affect us in a particularly negative way, as we plan to continue restorative work anyway. The only thing lost is that we won't be able to stress this Europe-wide, and won't be able to tackle new areas, such as the greening of cities, or agricultural issues, as strongly," Tooming went on.
Much of what the regulation requires is already written in Estonia's biodiversity strategy, Lotman added. "Of course, not as succinctly as that, while a strategy is but a strategy; a regulation is a legislative act."
Many of the same objectives are also outlined in EU directives currently in force, such as the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive, Tooming added.
Tooming said: "This restoration law simply sets a specific deadline for achieving these directives' objectives, and looks at nature more broadly than just in terms of endangered species and habitats."
However, the new regulation would have been more specific and precise, including on marine environments and rivers. It also included requirements for restoring farmland biodiversity. For instance, member states would have had to attempt to improve butterfly populations, as one option, measuring their progress against the European Grassland Butterfly Index.
That the regulation would have obligated countries to protect biodiversity outside of Natura conservation areas is also key, Lotman said.
He said: "We can't protect all our biodiversity solely within the context of the Natura conservation areas. The question then arises whether we should protect nature everywhere in the same way as we do in Natura areas. This clause got significantly weakened during negotiations, something which doesn't sit well with me as a conservationist."
The regulation's future is currently uncertain, since it was not rejected outright.
If it ends up being shelved, there is a risk that nature restoration will stall in line with that, at least, Lotman said. "The risk lies in us doing the work while our neighbors do not, as well as in us doing nothing, out of the very fear that we might being doing the work, while our neighbors are not."
In addition to the changes mentioned above, the nature restoration law would also call on member states to restore at least 30 percent of drained peatland by 2030. It constitutes a part of the much broader EU green deal.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Mari Peegel.
Source: ERR Radio News, reporter Joakim Klementi.