Draft Guidance document Management of wilderness and wild areas in Natura 2000 Contributors: Loek Kuiters Zoltan Kun Neil McIntosh Carleen Poirters Rob van Apeldoorn Vlado Vancura Michiel van Eupen Contact person: Olli Ojala (DG ENV) Purpose of Guidance Guidance in management of Natura 2000 sites where the objective is to preserve wilderness qualities Present current knowledge on the benefits of such objective Clarify relevance of Birds and Habitats Directives for wilderness areas by looking at qualities of wilderness Clarify key aspects of the management of wilderness areas Provide best practice examples, both on non-intervention management in existing wilderness areas and restoration management in wild areas in Natura 2000 Draft Guidance document Chapters 1.What is wilderness in the context of Natura 2000? 2.EU policy framework on biodiversity preservation 3.Ecosystem resilience, ecosystem services and benefits 4.Management approaches for wilderness in Natura Restoration approaches and management in wild areas 6.Financial needs and funding 7.Communication strategies What is wilderness? A wilderness is an area governed by natural processes, it is composed of native habitats and species and it is large enough for the ecological functioning of natural processes and the shaping of natural structures. It is untouched, and appears to be primarily affected by the forces of nature. It is undeveloped without settlements, roads or visual disturbance. In Europe wilderness is a relative concept. For practical reasons, the wilderness continuum concept is used. Wilderness is not a new aim of Natura 2000 or prescribing new rules, its already current practice in parts of the network and contributes to FCS of certain habitats and species. Spatial link with Natura 2000 (1) Source: CDDA-database/ N2000-database IUCN management categories Ia/Ib: strictly protected area/ wilderness Estimate: 10-15% of Natura 2000 Check is needed: set up of wilderness register Mapping: Natura 2000 sites where wilderness quality is likely Wilderness index: combination of attributes, such as population density, road/railway density, naturalness of land cover and ruggedness of the landscape, all scaled between 0 and 100. For each Natura 2000 site, the presence of the highest wilderness class (