Habitats Directive in northern Italy: a series of proposals for habitat definition improvement

By

Bonari, Gianmaria
Fratte, Michele Dalle
Lonati, Michele
Caccianiga, Marco
Lasen, Cesare
Armiraglio, Stefano
Barcella, Matteo
Buffa, Gabriella
Cerabolini, Bruno Enrico Leone
Mainetti, Andrea
Miserere, Luca
Oriolo, Giuseppe
Selvaggi, Alberto

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023-6-30

Original Publication

Plant sociology

Volume

60

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

67--89

Subjects

Alpine biogeographical region , Alps , Annex I , habitat types , Habitats Directive , Natura 2000 network , Nature conservation

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Pavia Società italiana di scienza della vegetazione 2012-2019

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/pls2023601/06

 

Abstract

Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) is the cornerstone of nature conservation in Europe and is at the core of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. There is room, however, for its improvement, at least for northern Italy, where ambiguities in the definition of habitat types of Annex I of the Habitats Directive are not novel and interpretation difficulties have been highlighted. Sharpening the characterization of habitat types represents an opportunity for lowering classification uncertainties and improving conservation success. With the aim to refine the definitions of habitat types and associated typical species of the Habitats Directive, a group of vegetation scientists of the Italian Society of Vegetation Science based in northern Italy made the exercise of finding viable proposals for those habitat types having a problematic interpretation in the Alpine biogeographical region of Italy. Such proposals arise from group discussions among scientists, and professionals, thus offering a shared view. We prepared 9 habitat proposals important for this geographic area. They include new habitat types at the European level, new subtypes within pre-existing habitat types, including some adjustments of the recently proposed subtypes with respect to northern Italy, and recognition of priority criteria for a pre-existing habitat type. With a vision of tailored conservation, our proposals represent a starting point in view of a future update of Annex I. Furthermore, the list of typical species could be useful for preparing expert systems for automatic classification. Irrespective of legally binding solutions in place, we caution these proposals represent relevant baseline conservation indications that local and regional administrations of the Alpine Arch should consider.