PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Article 11 of the EU’s Habitats Directive states that the Member States are responsible for monitoring the conservation status of species and habitats, especially those considered priority. In addition, article 17 of the directive states that the conservation statuses should be assessed every six years. To this end, it is necessary to monitor species and habitats. However, the surveillance of plant species and habitats of Community interest in the very diverse territory of Aragon is highly complex, because of the sheer number of items to be considered.
OBJECTIVES
The objective of the LIFE RESECOM project was to accomplish the goals set out in articles 11 and 17 of the Habitats Directive.
Concerning plant species of community interest (EIC), the objective would be to estimate population trends, using individual counts or other abundance measures, in permanent plots. Only habitats of community interest (HIC) items that are not effectively surveyed by remote sensing would be included, and the project would try to detect changes in the diversity of these communities as temporal variations in the abundance of species in permanent transects and in the populations of target plant species. Changes would be linked with in situ environmental changes (quantified via micro-climate, monitored with mini-loggers, and land use change, measured by comparing aerial pictures).
A key project priority would be the establishment of a user-friendly system to obtain all the information, based on electronic data-collection devices.
The project would also seek to demonstrate that the coordination of a diverse set of monitoring teams (rangers, volunteers, scientists, freelance specialists, and technicians) can facilitate a robust and self-sustaining monitoring network programme able to continue on its own after the project (and to be replicable in other regions).
RESULTS
The LIFE RESECOM project established a user-friendly system to obtain all the information needed for reporting on implementation of the EU Habitats Directive, based on the use of electronic data-collection devices. The project demonstrated its methodologies, in particular for flora, in the Spanish region of Aragón (47 500 km2, with two biogeographic regions - ALP and MED). The focus was on improving implementation of Article 11 of the Directive (Monitoring), where quality improvement relies also on Article 17 (Reporting) and Article 18 (Research).
The project team developed and improved the capacity for reporting. More than 60 citizen science volunteers and 84 statutory nature conservation wardens were trained for fieldwork during the five-year project duration. In the 2018 campaign (last), 132 people participated in LIFE RESECOM activities.
The project team designed and fine-tuned the monitoring network and monitoring methodology, for all regional flora of Community interest, with three levels of verification for robustness and including feedback for years of field data. This has allowed the improvement of the contribution of the Region of Aragón to the official report on the Habitats Directive coordinated by the national authority representing the Spain before the European Institutions.
Based on the LIFE project outcomes, the public regional administration competent for biodiversity management and planning in Aragón has elaborated detailed planning of plant monitoring tasks enforcing Article 11 of the Habitats Directive for the 10 years subsequent to the project end (i.e. 2019- 2028). This largely covers the next official reporting on the Habitats Directive.
The project's core document available for all participants are the monitoring protocols issued for species and for habitats. Scientific publications based on the range of data collected during the project will appear in future years.
At a complementary level, the continued engagement of citizen science volunteers in activities in remote areas to record biodiversity is proving, for the coordinating beneficiary, a valuable rural development asset.
