life, natura 2000 and the military

L I F E I I I

European Commission

LIFE, Natura 2000and the military

European CommissionEnvironment Directorate General

LIFE Focus is the journal of the LIFE III programme (2000–2006).

LIFE (“L’Instrument Financier pour l’Environnement” / The Financing Instrument for the Environment) is a European Commissionprogramme administered by the LIFE Unit of the Directorate-General for the Environment.

The content of LIFE Focus does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the institutions of the European Union.

Author: Anton Gazenbeek, Ecosystems LTD / Nature Link International. Managing Editor: Bruno Julien, European Commission,Environment DG, LIFE Unit – BU-9 02/1, B-1049 Brussels. LIFE Focus series coordinator: Simon Goss, LIFE Unit. Revision:François Kremer, Nature and Biodiversity Unit and Frank Vassen, LIFE Unit. Production: Nadine Mézard, Ecosystems LTD /Nature Link International. Contributors: Marita Arvela, Mats Eriksson, Marco Fritz, Britta Küper, John Houston, ConchaOlmeda, Riccardo Scalera, Geert Raeymaekers, Kerstin Sundseth. Acknowledgements: thanks to all LIFE-Nature beneficiaries,Ministries of Defence, and individual persons who have contributed photos and other useful material for this report. Coverphotos: Philip.H.Smith; Ministry of Defence Denmark; English Nature; Erling Krabbe (Danish Forest and Nature Agency).Graphic design: Helen Dobie, Nature Conservation Bureau, UK. This issue of LIFE Focus can be downloaded from the LIFEwebsite:http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/life/home.htm

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Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2005

ISBN 92-894-9213-9ISSN 1725-5619

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European CommissionLIFE Focus / LIFE, Natura 2000 and the military

2005 – 86 pp – 21 x 28 cmISBN 92-894-9213-9ISSN 1725-5619

LIFE Focus LIFE, Natura 2000 and the military

General Introduction to Natura 2000; The Role of LIFE ...................................................................... p. ii

SECTION ONE: THE CONTEXT ...........................................................................p.1

Why are military areas important for nature conservation? ............................................................. p.2Natura 2000 and the military – designation and its consequences ................................................ p.10

SECTION TWO: HELPING IMPLEMENT NATURA 2000 –LIFE ON ACTIVE MILITARY SITES ..................................................................... p.13

How LIFE helps: management planning .......................................................................................... p.16How LIFE helps: environmental training ......................................................................................... p.24How LIFE helps: restoration of habitats .......................................................................................... p.26How LIFE helps: recurring management .......................................................................................... p.32How LIFE helps: communicating with the general public ............................................................... p.38How LIFE helps: public access and recreation ................................................................................. p.40How LIFE helps: dissemination and exchange of best practice ...................................................... p.44Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... p.48

SECTION THREE: CO-OPERATION BETWEEN LIFE PROJECTSAND THE MILITARY .......................................................................................... p.49

Active military participation in the project ..................................................................................... p.50Passive military participation in the project .................................................................................... p.54Military expertise helping Natura 2000 through LIFE projects ....................................................... p.59

PART FOUR: LIFE ON FORMER MILITARY SITES .............................................. p.63

SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................... p.72

ANNEXES

Annex I: Read more .......................................................................................................................... p.76Annex II: LIFE-Nature project contacts ............................................................................................ p.77


General introduction toNatura 2000

The Natura 2000 network came intoexistence in 1992 through theadoption of the Habitats Directive,which, together with the BirdsDirective adopted in 1979, forms thecornerstone of the EU’s natureconservation policy. Together with theSpecial Protection Areas (SPAs)designated under the Birds Directive,the areas designated under theHabitats Directive as Sites ofCommunity Importance (SCI)constitute a network of protectedareas across the EU called Natura2000, sheltering species and habitatswhich are rare or endangered atEuropean level.

This network is one of theprincipal means for implementing thecommitment made by the Union’sHeads of State and Government atthe Göteborg summit in June 2001to ‘halt the loss of biodiversity by theyear 2010’. It is the EU’s tool to fulfilits obligations under internationalconventions such as the BernConvention and the Rio de Janeiroprocess.

For the first time, all member statesare working together towards thesame conservation goal and withinthe same legislative framework (thetwo directives) to protect andmanage vulnerable species and

habitats across their natural range,irrespective of political boundaries.

Designation of SPAs and SCI is nowalmost complete in the 15 stateswhich were members of the Unionbefore May 1st 2004. In these fifteen,Natura 2000 covers no less than18,000 sites with a total surface areagreater than Germany. Most of the tennew member states which joined onMay 1st 2004 already submitted theirlists of Natura 2000 sites at the dateof their accession. These siteproposals are currently beinganalysed by the Commission with aview to integrating them into theNatura 2000 network.

The role of LIFEManaging the Natura 2000 sites andrestoring parts which have beendamaged by past actions or neglect,adapting activities like farming,forestry, fishing, hunting andrecreation to the sustainablemaintenance of the sites, informingstakeholders and the general publicabout the conservation values andtargets… all this costs money. TheHabitats Directive acknowledges thisand in its Article 8 foresees acontribution from the Communitytowards these costs.

Since 1992, the EU has had aninstrument called LIFE exclusivelydevoted to funding environmentalprojects, within which there is asection for nature projects. Thissection, LIFE-Nature, is assigned47% of the total LIFE budget, foractions which contribute to theprotection of species and maintainingor restoring natural habitats under theBirds and Habitats Directives.

LIFE-Nature has been the onlyCommunity financial instrument tofocus first and foremost on theconservation of sites within theNatura 2000 network. It has so farcontributed €644 million to over 800nature projects across the EU. As weshall see, 28 of these have a militarydimension. Although a relatively smallfund in EU terms, its contribution inhelping to establish and manage theNatura 2000 network has beenconsiderable. Close to 2,000 sitesrepresenting over 10% of the totalnetwork have been targeted by LIFE-Nature projects so far.

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SECTION ONETHE CONTEXT

LIFE Focus LIFE, Natura 2000 and the military p. 1

This brochure looks both at the LIFE-Natureprojects which had a military dimension asat the context within which these projectstook place.

The term “military areas” covers a wideand heterogeneous range of terrainsand infrastructures owned and/or usedby the armed forces. Although somehave no particular interest for natureconservation, most of the military areas,and especially those used for trainingand testing, contain significant, evenspectacular, amounts of natural and semi-natural habitats and landscapes, withcorresponding abundances of wildlife.Sometimes they are among the richest andmost important sites for biodiversity in theircountry. Training areas can measure in thethousands or tens of thousands of hectareseach, but smaller military areas should notbe overlooked: between airfield runways oraround munitions depots and radarinstallations, for instance, ecologicallyinteresting pockets of nature often occur.


Why are military areas important fornature conservation?The sheer size of the military areas in question:The sheer size of the military areas in question:The sheer size of the military areas in question:The sheer size of the military areas in question:The sheer size of the military areas in question: looking at a topographic map, military estates used for training

and firing exercises stand out as large areas, uninterrupted by roads or built-up areas. Size is an important ecological

condition for the population dynamics of many species.

The French Ministry of Defence is oneof the country’s biggest landowners,controlling 265,000 ha, 0.5% of thetotal national territory. 13 militarycamps alone account for 40%, or108,600 ha. The estate encompasses84 military airfields, 195 traininggrounds, 133 firing ranges and 5,572buildings.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence owns240,000 ha in total, 1% of total Britishland territory. The natural value of thisestate is illustrated by the fact that itincludes 190 SSSI (Sites of SpecialScientific Interest, the most stringent

protection level under nationallegislation in the UK). There are morethan 140 coastal sites in the DefenceEstate, and these may cover part ofthe marine environment as well (e.g.firing ranges extending out to sea).

The Italian armed forces control aterritory whose total surface is170,100 ha, four times the surface ofthe nation’s flagship Abruzzo NationalPark. This includes 331 training areas,half of which are used as firing orshooting range, and about 200 sitesoccupied by lighthouses and radardevices. The distribution of the

military areas in the variousadministrative Regions mainly reflectsprevious assessments of the risk ofinvasion linked to the Cold War. Thus70 areas are located in Friuli-VeneziaGiulia, on the north-eastern border ofItaly, and another 41 in the adjacentTrentino-Alto Adige region. OnSardinia the total military estate isalmost 20,000 ha, with a singleshooting range of 12,000 ha (Salto diQuirra, Nuoro Province), and anotherrange in Capo Teulada (CagliariProvince) extending along 25 km ofcoastline (with a no-fly zone covering75.000 ha!).

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Why are military areas important for nature conservation? p. 3

Their intact microtopography: manyrural areas have lost ecologicalgradients (wet-dry, alkaline-acidic,light-shade, hummocks and depressions…..) as a result of rural land consolidationprogrammes and intensification ofagriculture. These processes bypassedmilitary areas. Their trophic situation: Manymilitary areas have a high biodiversitybecause they were never usedagriculturally, and so were neverfertilised. A basic ecological principleis that the number of differentplant species on a site increases asthat site’s soil and water becomespoorer in nutrients. An oligotrophicenvironment means that microhabitats,each with their peculiar plants andanimals, stand out more clearly,whereas when soil and water becomeenriched with nitrogen and phosphorus(i.e. eutrophic) the ecosystem becomesmore uniform and biodiversitydeclines.

Intact natural processes: some siteshave been used only as military areasfor very long periods, during whichother users were not allowed in, ormuch constrained in their activities. This meant no intensive agriculture,no residential building, no quarryingor mining, no hydrological changes,etc. Hence, natural processes (rivererosion and sedimentation processes,mobile dunes, accumulation of deadwood in forests, …) could take placeuntrammelled over large areas and –often – on intact soils.

The armed forces may not originallyhave had the intention to preservelarge tracts of natural heritage, butthe fact that de facto they have doneso, deserves to be acknowledged.

Some examples:Most of the Dutch military estatewas acquired over a century ago, onland not being used agriculturally atthe time, or of only marginalagricultural value. Thus militaryareas preserved landscapes longgone in the rest of the Netherlands– without their military dedicationthey would very likely have beendestroyed in the generalintensification of land use in thelater 20th century. In the Dutchmilitary estate, heaths (25% of thecurrent 30,000 ha), coastal andinland dunes and shifting sands(5%), dry nutrient-poor grassland(15%) and forests on poor soils(33%) are the most common habitattypes. They host, on a few % of thecountry’s total land area, half ormore of all the species found in theNetherlands, depending on thetaxonomic group.

Taxonomic Number of species Number of species foundGroup in the Netherlands in Dutch military areas

Vascular plants 1,490 785

Dragonflies 60 40

Butterflies 70 46

Birds 236 144source: Dutch Ministry of Defence, presentation to Salisbury Workshop July 2004

heaths, nutrient-poor grasslands,oligotrophic pools, alkaline fens,mixed oak-birch-beech woods,shifting sands, bogs and bogwoodlands and alder swamps. Manyplants, invertebrates, amphibians,reptiles and birds which are now rarein the rest of the country still occur insignificant numbers inside themilitary perimeters.

Finally, the huge changes to theDanish landscape (agriculturalintensification, loss of heathland)during the 20th century bypassed themilitary areas, which are nowthe country’s last coherent semi-natural areas, untouched for decades.Their biodiversity is 5 times that of thesurrounding countryside.

In a Mediterranean context, Italy’sdefence estate covers a number ofsites of high ecological value, witha variety of well-preserved habitattypes ranging from long tracts ofcoastline and alluvial plains to highmountain peaks, with karsticplateaux, heaths and Mediterraneanscrub, wetlands and steppic

The military estate in Belgium covers26,000 ha and was also acquired inthe 19th and early 20th century inareas that were among the mostmarginal agricultural lands; sandy orhilly country that had for centuriesbeen used in a very traditional and‘low-key’ manner – burning ofheath followed by cropping,grazing by itinerant flocks ofsheep, etc. Subsequent agriculturalintensification and rapid urbanisationin Belgium, especially Flanders,mean that the military areas are nowamong the last large unspoiltsemi-natural areas left. They havepreserved old landscapes like

grasslands in between. In allthese areas public access isstrictly forbidden, as well as anykind of exploitation, includingbuilding, agriculture and tourismdevelopment. Thus Italian militaryareas, although designatedfor purposes other than natureconservation, effectively acted asbarriers against the uncontrolledbuilding and overexploitation ofnatural resources which has ruinedso much Mediterranean land andbrought ecological degradationand impoverishment to manyareas of particular conservationconcern.


The natural heritage preserved by the military includes some real rarities, even species teetering on the brink of

extinction. LIFE-Nature is co-financing the rescue of a globally threatened reptile whose last stronghold is in

and around a Hungarian military area.

LIFE-Nature project

Saving the Hungarian meadow viper (Vipera ursinii rakosiensis)from extinction (LIFE 04/NAT/HU/0116)

Vipera ursinii rakosiensis is a smallpoisonous snake which used to occurover a relatively broad area insoutheastern Europe, from Austriato Bulgaria. Agricultural intensificationand afforestation of open grasslandsdestroyed its habitat to such anextent that by the 1970s its occurrencewas restricted to Hungary, and evenin this last stronghold its numbershave continued to plummet. Of 31stations in the 1970s, only 3 were leftat the beginning of the 21st century.Total population was then estimatedat 250-500 individuals only – theHungarian population is the last leftin the world.

The three stations where it stil loccurs are Hansag in the northwest

of Hungary, the Bocsa-Bugac hillsin the southern Kiskunsag (betweenDanube and Tisza in central Hungary)and, the most important population,half of the total, the Dabasi-Turjanos area between Dabas andTatarszentgyorgy in the northernKiskunsag.

A large part of this last station is takenup by the Taborfalva military shootingrange, used by Soviet and HungarianArmed Forces since the SecondWorld War. The range is a mosaicof marshy grassland (SuccisoMolinietum coeruleae) in lower partsand sandy meadows (Astragalo-Festucetum rupicolae) and pastures(Potentillo arenariae – Festucetumpseudovinae) in the hilly sections,

with patches of trees alternating withopen woodland.

The existence of the military trainingarea has acted as a brake onintensification of land use. Fields wereleft out of most agricultural activities,preserving a steppe-type grasslandvegetation. Consequently Dabasi-Turjanos is still very rich in naturalvalues, serving as a refuge for severalrare species. It is no coincidence thatthe largest remaining Vipera ursiniirakosiensis population in the worldhas managed to hang on in andaround the military training area, andit is this population that offers the bestprospects to drag the species backfrom the brink of extinction.

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Generally, during the period before1990 military training areas preservedland from intensive use like ploughingor afforestation, which affected somuch of the Hungarian steppes undersuccessive plans to boost output.After the political changes in 1990most of the training areas wereclosed, while military activitiesincreased on the remaining ones,especially after Hungary joined NATO.Nature conservation bodies andagricultural interests competed for theuse of the decommissioned areas.

The Hungarian Ministry of Defencekept Taborfalva and stepped uptraining there, e.g. for SFOR andHungarian units deployed to Iraq andAfghanistan. It is used for exercises(infantry, trucks, armoured vehicles)and for shooting.

Because of the Vipera ursiniirakosiensis presence, MME, aHungarian conservation NGO, andthe Duna-Ipoly National Parkconcluded an agreement with theHungarian Armed Forces about jointcollaboration for its conservation.The Taborfalva military personnelnotify MME well in advance of theiractivities and allow it to carry out fieldstudies on any part of the rangeduring inactive periods. Two blocksof land belonging to the Ministry ofDefence, Dög-hegy and Göböly-jaras, located in the buffer zonearound the central shooting ranges,were leased by MME from 1994onwards as viper reserves. Togetherthey cover nearly 1,000 hectares.Under the terms of the five-yearrenewable lease agreementsMME has to present its annualmanagement plan and list of activities(mowing etc) to the Ministry by Marchof each year. Although the militarymay occupy the area if neededwithout any previous consent ofMME, it will inform MME three daysprior to the event, in order to minimisedamage to the viper populations. TheMinistry refuses all l iabil ity foraccidents or damage caused by anincreased snake population.

To kick-start species recovery, usingthe vipers in and around the militaryarea, MME in 2003 successfully

applied for a LIFE-Nature projectwith the following actions:

> A comprehensive monitoringprogramme will try to find all vipersubpopulations in and around themilitary area and track theirevolution, and pave the way forreintroduction of captive-bredanimals.

> On the Dög-hegy block, landmanagement ideally suited to thevipers will be launched (no annualmowing, partial mowing onlyevery 3 years to keep enoughopen habitat, cutting out bushesto stop succession).

> Another ideal habitat will becreated on non-military land nearthe shooting range by clearingtrees to restore open grasslands.

> Finally and most significantly,LIFE-Nature will fund theconstruction of a captive-breeding centre nearby. Viperstaken from the populations in thebuffer zones around the shootingranges will be used as breedingstock, and the progeny will bereleased back into these areas aswell as the new habitat to becreated by the project. Thisshould not only shore up the wild

population and reverse itsdecline, but also increase geneticdiversity and eventually allow agreater area to be populated.

During the LIFE project, the militaryarea’s central shooting ranges willalso be monitored. They are a riskfactor because the fires caused bythe shooting can kill vipers outrightand burn off vegetation, leaving anunsuitable environment lacking inprey and cover. The shooting rangeswill stay in use – this has beenconfirmed by recent NATO trainingmissions there – and so the projectwill, on the basis of its monitoringwork, discuss other options with theMinistry of Defence to conserve thevipers (e.g. avoidance during trainingof areas where vipers are known tooccur, or removal of vipers from siteswhere military use can not bestopped). Vipers are also sensitive tovibrations, so the movement of truckor tank convoys can be a negativefactor for them; this too is to belooked at during the project. This LIFEproject will run until Dec 31st 2007.

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Another endangered species, thegreat bustard (Otis tarda), has alsobenefited from the presence of theTaborfalva military area. One ofHungary’s populations of the greatbustard extends across theKiskunsag, including the military area.A LIFE-Nature project (Otis tarda inHungary – LIFE04NAT/H/0109)addressing all populations of thegreat bustard in Hungary, to secureand increase its populations, beganin 2004. The Kiskunsag National Parkis responsible for the part of theproject which includes Dög-hegy andthe surrounding part of the Taborfalvamilitary area. Measures in theKiskunsag include counting greatbustards, monitoring their habitat,scouting for nests, guarding themwhere necessary and reintroductionof captive-bred birds.

Finally, the imperial eagle Aquilaheliaca, which has lost much of itsoriginal range and inside the EU isnow effectively reduced to Hungary(50-60 pairs) and Slovakia. A LIFEproject (Conservation of Aquilaheliaca in the Carpathian basinLIFE02/NAT/H/8627) is monitoringthe imperial eagle throughoutHungary, guarding nests whereneeded and formulating appropriatemanagement for each population.The eagles are scattered over manysites, and some of these populationsowe their existence to military use.At Miskolc-Kisgyor in the easternBukk mountains, the DIGEP

armaments factory used the slopesto test the artillery it manufactured.Consequently, the forests were out ofbounds, even for foresters, and wereideal undisturbed nesting areas forthe imperial eagle. Three breedingpairs settled there, foraging ingrasslands in the lowlands which

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were also used as shooting range.DIGEP closed ten years ago, andalthough the eagles are still there,forestry and tourism are increasingnow that access to the land is open.The LIFE project is examining how toachieve the suitable conditions for theeagle once guaranteed by the militarypresence.

Two other populations are associatedwith military training areas: Varpalota-Hajmasker (Bakony mountains) andMarkaz-Abasar (Matra mountains).The former is still used as shootingrange and the short grass covering itis full of sousliks (Spermophiluscitellus), prey for a pair of eagleswhich nest here. The latter wasemployed for shooting until the early1990s, and used by four or five eaglesas foraging area, but since the end ofmilitary training the grass has grownlonger and the site’s value for foraginghas probably declined. The LIFEproject is studying this with an eye toproposing measures if required.


Disturbance is an important factor indetermining the quality of ecosystems.Several habitat types can only attaina good conservation status if thereis an absence of disturbance, forinstance intensive forestry may havenegative impacts on biodiversity of

Absence of disturbance

This may sound strange, given the kind of activities commonly associatedwith military use. Disturbance does occur in military areas, but mostly at regularintervals, often in the same sections of the area, while the size of many militaryareas allows migration possibilities. Although military exercises may seemviolent and spectacular, in many bases and training areas only a part of thesite is used. Firing ranges for instance typically consist of long straight ‘shootinggalleries’ separated by broad areas of wood or heath in between. The rangesare used, but for obvious reasons there is not much traffic on them, and theswathes of nature between the firing lines are seldom if ever used for anything.Tanks and other heavy vehicles tend to be used on well-defined tracks orroutes which do not change that often. Infantry exercises do range over awider area, but their impact is often low.

Presence of disturbance

Paradoxically, some of thedisturbance that occurs duringmilitary activities can bebeneficial for conservation.Pioneer communities of faunaand flora depend upondisturbance; in nature this can besoil erosion, wildfire, floodingetc., to which certain species areadapted. In the absence ofdisturbance, such communitiesevolve into other habitats throughthe process of natural succession.Bombing, shelling, prescribedburning for training purposes andarmoured vehicle manoeuvrescan mimic these naturaldisturbances and create pioneercommunities, or maintain themagainst natural succession. Thusbare sand and soil, uncommonhabitats which rapidly evolvethrough succession but host arange of rare plants andinvertebrates (as well as birdssuch as Burhinus oedicnemus,the stone curlew), are constantlycreated in military areas used forsuch exercises. Holes left bytracked vehicles can fill withwater and become pools whichare ideal breeding habitat foramphibians.

forest habitats, while raised bogs losetheir ecological quality if they aresubjected to drainage and/or peatexcavation. On the other hand, thereare habitat types which benefit fromdisturbance: grasslands andheathlands which are not browsed by

large herbivores or mowed, willgradually disappear as shrubs andtrees take hold and grow intothickets and eventually woodland.Military areas contain both groupsof habitats, but they also exhibitboth sides of the disturbance coin!

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LIFE challenges established wisdom: Conservation lessons to be learnt from the military

One of the functions of LIFE is to innovate and discover new approaches to environmental problems and to shake upexisting practice. That bombing, shelling and driving tanks through a landscape can have positive ecological effectswill surprise many, but this is one of the lessons learned by the LIFE-Nature project Dorset Heaths (LIFE92/NAT/UK/0133) and its follow-up!

Much heath in northwest Europe has been lost to development, and what is left is almost everywhere threatened by thegrowth of shrubs and trees. The conservation NGO Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) requested andobtained LIFE-Nature funds for a pilot project to stop the decline in Dorset, the UK’s leading district for lowland heaths,and evaluate ways to manage the heathland so that it does not evolve into woodland. This project thus had twoobjectives: immediate restoration of heathland sites in Dorset, and testing techniques and collecting experience inorder to refine heathland management. The results were published in the RSPB ‘Handbook on Heathland Management’,which, to mark the good collaboration with the armed forces (who assisted RSPB’s restoration work with their earth-moving machinery), was officially launched at a military site in Dorset.

Of the 6,500 ha lowland heath left in Dorset after the destruction of most of its original extent by agricultural changesand urbanisation, 1,350 ha, 20%, are owned by the Ministry of Defence, distributed over 5 military sites. These sites areused for live firing, which causes expanses of heath to burn off, and for tank exercises, which create deep tracks orexpanses of bare sand. This sounds very damaging, yet according to the LIFE project manager, Dante Munns (RSPB),such rough treatment mimics the traditional use which created and maintained the heathland semi-natural habitat formany centuries. In the 19th century and before, carts and livestock etched out sandy tracks across the heaths, whileareas were regularly burned for grazing and cropping. The trick, when making a conservation management plan, is todefine the optimum use. This is borne out by the example of the Bovington military area: in the 1980s tanks used all ofit to train, leaving behind vast expanses of bare sand. In reaction, initial conservation advice was to restrict the tanks towell-defined tracks, but then it transpired that the land between the tracks was evolving from heath to scrub becauseit was too undisturbed.

Moreover, bare sand is a valuable habitat in itself because it supports unique specialised invertebrates, but has becomerare. At a comparable non-military heathland site in Dorset, specialist invertebrates have to make do with only a few m²of bare sand on average.

In other words, the armed forces had all those years been doing recurring heathland management and bare sandhabitat creation on their Dorset sites, but not deliberately, simply as part and parcel of their normal activities.

This particular conclusion of the broad reflection on heathland management launched by the LIFE project, is backed upby literature. So it is not a new discovery. However, it is important that it is tested, reiterated and disseminated by theLIFE project and its follow-up (for instance, Mr Munn gave a presentation at the July 2004 workshop in Salisbury onNatura 2000 and military site management), because many conservation agents are either not aware that militarytraining can benefit heath and sand habitats, or do not fully accept that.

A provocative question raised by the work of this LIFE project: why spend money in military sites on manual scrub-cutting or sod removal, the classic conservation techniques to restore overgrown heath and recreate bare sand, whenit might be cheaper and just as effective to shift the location of tank exercises into the scrub areas until a “dustbowl” iscreated on which heath can regenerate naturally?

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The LIFE-Nature project DorsetHeathlands made a systematicexamination of heath management,including on military sites, and itsconclusions about the beneficial roleof military use when dealing withhabitats requiring disturbance andactive management, are mirrored byother case studies.

> Shifting sands are very rare in theNetherlands after centuries ofwork to contain and afforest them,but are still a typical feature ofDutch military areas because theyare deliberately kept open inshooting ranges as fire barriersand because in sandy areas ‘free-for-all exercises’ (i.e. drive whereyou like) keep ripping up the turfand exposing the sand.

> For much the same reason, the lastmorphologically active continentaldune left in the German regionSachsen-Anhalt is found in themilitary training area Altmark.Throughout eastern Germany inthe early 1990s there were largeexpanses of bare sand and


pioneer vegetation in the manytraining areas left by the WarsawPact armies.

> In the German region Rheinland-Pfalz, a survey revealed that thebiggest individual amphibianpopulations occurred in thearmoured vehicle training areasKoblenz-Schmittenhöhe andBaumholder – depressions andholes left by the vehicles’ tracksfilled with water and became idealbreeding habitats.

> A joint workshop on Jan. 20 2005by Metsähallitus (Finnish forest andpark service) and the Pori Brigadeof the Finnish Armed Forcesevaluated past management ofthermophile habitats on eskers(designated pSCI) in the Säkylätraining area. It concluded thatmilitary use was positive becauseit kept these habitats open, byburning and by creating bareground through explodingmunitions. Even better outcomesfor nature might be achieved byrotating firing exercises over the siteinstead of aiming at the same target

zones. This, and other discoveries,is being integrated into the Natura2000 management planning for thetraining area.

> The Salisbury Plain training area inthe UK has vast expanses of chalkgrassland, and tanks andexploding shells turn about 26 haof this chalk grassland into bareground annually. This soundsnegative. However, the siteconservation manager hasinvestigated and concludes thatsuch a first impression would bedeceptive. Bare ground is a rarehabitat in itself, a last refuge forwild plants once common in arablefields, for various invertebrates etc,and eventually it returns to chalkgrassland. Similarly, the deepholes in tank tracks fill with waterand become ideal habitat fortoads, newts and fairy shrimp (aspecies restricted to temporarypools). The stone curlew, a shyAnnex I bird which has lost muchground in the UK, was even foundbreeding within an armouredvehicle driving range.

The impact area of the firing ranges on the Salisbury Plain is kept open byburning, and this is good for the Annex II butterfly Euphydryas aurinia. Why?Its host plant, Succisia pratensis, requires early succession stages togerminate and spread, and is easily shaded out by natural succession; thewrong kind of grazing causes it to decline vis-à-vis other plants. Loss ofhost plant meant that 66% of Euphydryas populations in England in 1990were extinct by 2000. In the Plain military training area, regular burning givesthe host plant the chance to maintain itself against its competitors. Moreover,shell craters provide ideal egg-laying and caterpillar habitat for the butterfly.With 35% of total English population, the Plain is now northern Europe’smost important site for this Annex II species. The LIFE-Nature project whichbegan on the Salisbury Plain and Porton Down in April 2001, further boostedthe Euphydryas aurinia population by a number of measures:> scrub encroaching on grassland rich in Succisia pratensis (butterfly

habitat) was cleared (12.6 ha);> restoration of 5 sections of degraded Succisia pratensis grassland totalling

9 ha;> a 4 ha plantation of trees was cut down to create additional habitat;> there is grazing on parts of the Salisbury Plain, and a number of plots (over 10 ha in all) were fenced off on the

grasslands to prevent grazing damage to, and stimulate growth of, the butterfly host plant and so increase habitatand create stepping stones between fragmented populations;

> at Porton Down, Euphydryas sites were connected by ‘seeding’ corridors between them with plugs of suitable grassgrown from seeds collected from the chalk grasslands. These plugs would spread outward to become corridors.Over 1,000 such plugs were planted.

LIFE-Nature is also funding a monitoring programme for Euphydryas aurinia. The NGO Butterfly Conservation, a partnerin the project, made a baseline survey in the beginning of the project measuring the presence of Euphydryas, its hostplant and grass height. The survey will be repeated towards the end of the project to assess changes, e.g. as a resultof the actions financed by LIFE-Nature.

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Natura 2000 and the military –designation and its consequences

Some examples:> in the Netherlands, 50% of the total

military estate of 30,000 ha and allfiring ranges have been includedinto Natura 2000.

> in Belgium, of the 26,000 ha totalmilitary estate, 70% was includedinto Natura 2000 – 9,400 ha (12sites) in Flanders and 8,000 ha (3sites) in Wallonia.

> 45% of Danish military areas(which total 32,000 ha) has beenincluded into Natura 2000.

Given that they host such important natural heritage, it is not surprising that considerable portions of the military

estates in the EU scientifically qualify for inclusion in the Natura 2000 network, and have indeed been proposed.

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Natura 2000 and the Military p. 11

As the implementation of the HabitatsDirective and Natura 2000 began togather pace in the second half of the1990s, many stakeholders raisedconcerns about the process and whatNatura 2000 might mean to them. Themilitary authorities were no exception.The main concerns they raised, were,in summary:

> What does Natura 2000 mean interms of day-to-day site use andactivities?

> Does Natura 2000 mean that theenvironment authorities, to fulfiltheir obligations towards the EU,declare military areas as formalnature reserves under national law,with long lists of rigid ‘don’ts’ andprohibitions?

> What is the consequence ofArticles 6.3 and 6.4 of the HabitatsDirective for changes to the use ofa military area? Will the militaryauthorities have to do impactassessments and get a go-aheadfrom the environment authoritieseach time they want to changetheir activities?

> A significant negative impact onNatura 2000 values means that thedesired change to activities mustbe modified, or an alternativefound. This can only becircumvented for an “overridingpublic interest” (and for sites withpriority habitats and species thisis further restricted!). Given thatthe main mission of the armedforces is to defend the individualmember states’ vital interests (soby implication, the Community’stoo) and protect the essentialvalues of European societies, canmilitary obligations and concernsbe considered by definition one ofthe ‘imperative reasons ofoverriding public interest’ allowingplans for new or changed militarytraining or infrastructure to goahead even if there was an impact

on the Natura 2000 values?Assuming that in the event of anarmed attack on a country,‘overriding public interest’absolutely applies, a grey zone isleft: Does training and preparing fora possible attack qualify as alsobeing ‘overriding public interest’?

> According to Articles 6.3 and 6.4,ecological damage that can notbe prevented must be compensatedelsewhere, and the Commissioninformed (or even consulted inadvance, for certain casesconcerning priority habitats andspecies). Does this mean that forall new military activities, orintensification of existing activities,the ministries of defence mustinvest time and money in modifyingplans or in compensatory actions?Where would such sites be found,who will pay for the compensationand what if the Commission rejectsthe proposed compensation?

> Change of activities up to a certainlevel or degree could perhaps behandled within site managementplans, especially if they areelaborated together with theconservation authorities, but canthe kind of change where a trainingarea is used today for infantrytraining and in future for battle tanktraining also be included in themanagement plans?

> Generally, when a mission abroadhas to be started, the military hasvery little time between the orderfrom the government and theactual deployment to the theatreof operation. In this short periodthe units that will go, must beprepared for the job. This means adramatic increase in the exercisingactivities. If this is being done inNatura 2000 sites, how can thisbe squared with Article 6? Evendoing an EIA, let alone the fullArticle 6.3 and 6.4 procedure,will take time, which contradicts

the need to move fast withthe training and deployment.

> If major changes to existing militaryactivity are connected to thetesting of new types of weaponsor new exercises linked toimpending operations wheresurprise will be a critical factor,giving details to obtain an Article6 blessing might contradict militarysecrecy. Is it opportune for otherauthorities to be given details ofclassified military developments?In this context, the legislation onaccess to environmental informationallows a request to be refused bythe military authorities if divulgationof the information can harm itsactivities. This seems to conflictwith Article 6 requirements.

Underlying these critical questions,there seemed to be a deeper senseof loss of autonomy. In certaincountries, national legislation,sometimes dating back to Napoleonictimes, gave the military authoritiestotal autonomy for everythingconcerning the military estate. Havingto justify and get permission forlegitimate military use from (civilian)authorities in the framework of Natura2000, was not welcomed and wouldtake considerable adjustment – thatappeared to be an underlyingmessage in several statementsfrom military authorities. In thissame light, there was a fear that theright of every individual citizenor association/NGO to petitionthe European Commission andEuropean Parliament about allegedbreaches of EU environment law,such as Article 6, would furthermortgage military work bycomplainants seizing on any militaryactivity which might impact on theNatura 2000 values, ‘withoutconsidering the proportionalityprinciple’, as it was put.

What were the main concerns from the militaryconcerning Natura 2000?


Ministries of Defence and militaryauthorities have been aware ofenvironmental concerns for a longtime, and have been addressing themat national level, in the context ofnational legislation and programmes,but also at supranational level.

NATO, which brings together most EUmember states’ ministries, has beendealing with environmental issues formany years through its Committee onthe Challenges of Modern Society andits Division of Scientific andEnvironmental Affairs. In May 2002 theNATO Partnership for Peace held aconference in Brussels with as theme‘NATO and EU environmental policies,the implications for military planning,operations training and exercises’. In2003 NATO environment policy wasagreed in Document MC469 ‘NATOmilitary principles and policies forenvironmental protection’. TheEnvironment Protection WorkingGroup translates this NATOenvironment policy into directives forpractical implementation, such asStandard NATO Agreement 7141EP‘Environmental protection duringNATO-led operations and exercises’which stipulates preventive measuresduring exercises.

The NATO (SHAPE) school atOberammergau (Bavaria) has longbeen training NATO military inenvironmental matters. The UnitedStates Armed Forces in Europeimplement environmental protectionprogrammes on their bases, which,at training areas like Grafenwöhr

NATO is interested in LIFE and Natura 2000: the LIFE-Nature project for theSalisbury Plain military training area gave a presentation on its work to theNATO Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society in Sept. 2003.

The DEFNET meeting of Nov. 18-19 2004 in Rotterdam, once again had Natura2000 on its agenda, but now mainly focusing on how the LIFE-Natureprogramme could help armed forces implement the Birds and HabitatsDirectives on their estate.

Can the LIFE programme help address these questionsand concerns?

When it finances management planning work to reconcile, for a particularsite, conservation and military use, developing a model which can betransposed to other military areas, it is doing just that. Partnership projectsbetween the military and environment authorities, co-financed by LIFE, areexcellent laboratories to learn to work together and gain mutual trust and aprofessional working relationship. The next section will go into this in moredetail, and show how LIFE can also help with other aspects of Natura 2000site management.

(Bavaria), include managementactions and sanctuaries for naturalhabitats and species.

When the potential impact of EUenvironmental legislation became everclearer, contacts were laid with theCommission. This led to a firstworkshop in Brussels in January 2001,co-hosted by DG Environment and theUS Department of Defence Office ofEnvironmental Security, entitled‘Environment Initiatives in the EU:Implications for Military Forces’. Itbrought together the heads of theenvironmental sectors within theministries of defence of 13 nations andCommission officials, and was meantto improve mutual understanding ofthe issues. All environment issueswere covered, including the Habitatsand Birds Directive.

Participants to this workshop wantedto continue such exchanges and thisled to the establishment of an informalnetwork of representatives of theministries of defence of EU memberstates, with the USA and Canada asobservers. This network, dubbed

DEFNET, meets twice a year, hostedby the member state holding thePresidency, to discuss latestdevelopments concerning EUenvironmental policy.

The Habitats and Birds Directives andNatura 2000 have been debated atmany DEFNET meetings since 2001.Within DEFNET, Belgium from thebeginning took the lead on this issue.On Nov 8-9 2001, during the BelgianPresidency, it organized a DEFNETworkshop, ‘Environment and Defencein the European Union’, at whichNatura 2000 was a major topic. Acommon position was reached whichacknowledged the importance ofprotecting biodiversity and reaffirmedthe will of the armed forces tocontribute, in particular throughimplementing management planswhich reconcile the protection ofhabitats with the military use of theNatura 2000 sites but leave thepossibility open to temporarilysuspend, or deviate from, the plans incase of operational necessitymotivated by an emergency situation.

Dialogue at European level

Footnote:Footnote:Footnote:Footnote:Footnote: NATO, contacts, please see annex. DEFNET, contact: Ronald De Rooij, [email protected]

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LIFE, Natura 2000 and the military p. 13

SECTION TWOHELPING IMPLEMENT

NATURA 2000 –LIFE ON ACTIVE MILITARY SITES


Helping implement Natura 2000:LIFE on active military sitesThe armed forces are already important stakeholders in Natura 2000 by the very fact that military areas have

been proposed for the network, but they are also potential partners. Natura 2000 has much to gain from a

partnership with the military owners and managers of pSCI and SPAs.

‘Geintegreerd natuurherstel opmilitaire domeinen in Natura 2000’(LIFE03/NAT/B/0024), approved by the Commissionin Sept. 2003, runs from Sept. 2003 to Dec. 2008

The project is a partnership between the Belgian Ministry of Defenceand the Flemish Environment Ministry, which both invest matchingfunds to the LIFE cofinance. Their collaboration is laid down by twocontracts – one for financial management (Dec. 2003) and one fortechnical implementation and decision-making (March 2004).

A partnership was formed between English Nature, the statutoryconservation agency, and the UK Ministry of Defence (DefenceEstates and Defence Evaluation Research Agency – now DSTL),with other conservation organisations. A programme of activitieswas agreed: restore the conservation value of the site anddemonstrate continuing military use, in partnership withconservation, on a Natura 2000 site. A Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MOU) was signed between partners on 17th January2003. A high-level Project Board oversees the project; this steeringgroup is supported by the Project Management Team and three sub-groups (Monitoring, Public Awareness and Implementation).

LIFE-Nature project

Natura 2000 is by no means intendedto be a system of totally closedreserves, and multifunctional use(including military activities) of the sitesis one of the essential characteristicsof the network.

The core question is: how can futureuse by the armed forces of their own

There are two large-scale LIFE-Natureprojects, both of them partnershipsbetween the ministries of defenceand the environment, coveringmilitary areas simultaneouslyimportant for training and for Natura2000, which are exploring answersto this question.

sites, particularly changes to use, beintegrated with the obligation tomaintain a favourable conservationstate under Natura 2000? How canmilitary site managers best andmost smoothly work together withthe national and EU competentnature authorities on complying withthe Natura 2000 requirements?

‘Improving management ofSalisbury Plain Natura 2000 sites’(LIFE00/NAT/UK/7071), approved by the Commission in2001, which runs from April 2001 to Sept. 2005

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Helping implement Natura 2000 p. 15

The project covers all 9,400 ha of the military estate in Flandersproposed for Natura 2000.

The project covers the 40,000 ha Salisbury Plain military trainingarea and the nearby defence research and testing site Porton Down(2,750 ha).

There are 12 project sites. They consist of three munitions depots,two air force bases and one training airfield, two firing ranges andfour training areas for exercising ground forces. Two practicallycontiguous training areas (Beverlo and Helchteren) account for overhalf the total surface area and a firing range (Brasschaat) for another20%.

The Salisbury Plain was acquired by the British armed forces in 1897.It is the UK´s foremost armoured manoeuvre site and NATO´s second-largest urban combat training area. Firing is both dry training (blankmunition) and live-firing – air, artillery, armoured vehicles. Parachutedrops are also carried out. Over 700,000 man-days of training takeplace each year.

DSTL Porton Down is a Ministry of Defence research and testing/training site.

The 12 sites cover a mosaic of habitats: heaths (Annex I types 2310,4030 & 4010), grasslands on fossil inland dunes (Annex I 2330), Nardusgrasslands (6230), habitats associated with oligotrophic pools (3130),tall herb vegetations (6430), alder woods along brooks (91E0) and mirehabitats associated with succession in stagnant waters (7140, 7150).

The Salisbury Plain contains the largest unbroken block (14,000 ha)of chalk grassland in northwest Europe, accounting for 43% of theUK´s total resource of this Annex I habitat. Elsewhere, thesegrasslands, which once covered the downs of southern England,have been ploughed up for arable land, particularly after the adventof the CAP in the 1970s. Very likely, if it had not been for their militarystatus, the Plain and Porton Down would have been converted tograinfields as well.

The project sites also contain the largest community of Juniperuscommunis in lowland England (18,000 bushes) and the Plain hosts35% of the total population of the Annex II butterfly Euphydryasaurinia in the UK. The Natura 2000 area covering the chalk grasslandssupports 20% of the UK breeding population of the Annex I birdBurhinus oedicnemus; adjacent farmland supports an additional12.4% of total UK breeding population which uses the grasslandsfor feeding.

This project’s objectives are:> elaborate and test management planning to reconcile Natura

2000 conservation requirements with military use;> set up systems to ensure that the plans are used in practice;> carry out habitat restoration work, notably against succession,

which is a major problem after decades without properconservation management;

> build up the framework for lasting recurring management afterthe project;

> tackle recreational pressures;> initiate monitoring of conservation status.

This project has as aims:> continue and deepen the partnership between the military and

environment authorities in running the sites for mutual benefit;> provide input into the Integrated Land Management Plan being

drawn up;> maintain and expand grazing management; test and introduce

systems for grazing which both increase returns for farmersand conservation benefit;

> carry out restoration work to correct the results of past neglect(overgrown grasslands) or inappropriate actions (tree plantingto create cover for exercising troops);

> carry out specific measures for species (Burhinus oedicnemus,Euphydryas aurinia, Juniperus communis);

> start up monitoring schemes;> information and awareness-raising work towards the military staff

and the local communities;> disseminate best practice and lessons learnt.

Between them, the two projects showthe different tasks which togetherconstitute the complete scenario fortaking care of a Natura 2000 site:

> management planning (includingpreliminary inventories)

> training and other measures to ensurecorrect application of the plans

> restoration of degraded habitatsto a good conservation status

> recurring management to keephabitats in a favourable conservationstatus (including monitoring)

> communication with stakeholdersand the public

> controlling and guiding visitoraccess (tourism and recreation)

> dissemination of results andexchange of experience with peers.

We will look at each of these tasks inturn, how they have been addressedby military authorities in general andhow LIFE-Nature, through the twoprojects mentioned above, is showinghow it can help carry them out.


How LIFE helps: managementplanningWhat has been done to plan conservation and military use until now?

The first step to reconcileconservation and military use is tofind out what the natural values wereand where they occur (surveys andinventories) and then to plan howmilitary use could take them intoaccount, identifying points of conflictwhich need a decision and consensusby both parties (managementplanning).

LIFE-Nature has not inventedmanagement planning for militaryareas, but is currently financingthe two large projects presented in the

preceding section where managementplanning is developed in a strategicmanner and with Natura 2000 in mind.A few examples of managementplanning on military areas doneprevious to LIFE are given here as anintroduction.

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How LIFE helps: management planning p. 17

FranceIn France, a nation-wide inventory ofbiologically valuable sites (zonesnaturelles d’intérêt écologique,faunistique et floristique, ZNIEFF) inthe 1980s by the Ministry of theEnvironment revealed that large partsof the military estate qualified. TheFrench Ministry of Defenceresponded by gradually introducingvarious measures to protect andmanage these nature values. In April1995 it concluded a protocol with theEnvironment Ministry to elaborateand implement joint actions to protectthe environment within the frameworkof defence imperatives. Environmentoffices were set up within eachbranch of the armed forces, plus acentral administration office to defineenvironmental rules, and proceduresto monitor their application. A secondprotocol between the two ministries,in July 2003, focused joint action onsix strategic themes, which includedNatura 2000 and sustainablemanagement of the defence estate.A committee of representatives of thetwo ministries was created and at itsfirst meeting in Oct. 2003 it choseNatura 2000 and environmentaltraining as the two priorities for 2004.Management plans for the Natura

2000 sites in the French military estatewill follow the ‘document d’objectif’model, i.e. the target-oriented planningbased on stakeholder consultationand consensus which the FrenchEnvironment Ministry has developedspecifically for Natura 2000. Theseplans are the responsibility of the localmilitary authorities, who negotiatewith their local counterparts, suchas the ‘Directions regionales del’environnement’ (decentralisedantennae of the Environment Ministry)or the ‘Parcs naturels regionaux’(nature parks, administered by aplatform of municipalities). Thesecounterparts can then assist andadvise the military authorities with thedaily management of the sites.

The NetherlandsThe Dutch Ministry of DefenceCooperation between the DutchMinistry of Defence and section NBLFof the Agriculture Ministry (thecompetent authority for natureconservation) began in 1992, in thecontext of the government’s decisionto set up a national ecological networkof valuable nature areas and linkingcorridors (part of which was laterproposed for Natura 2000). The twoauthorities carried out an ecologicalsurvey of the military training areasbetween 1996 and 2002; data from itwas used by NBLF to help define theDutch ecological network and Natura2000. When this survey ended, theMinistry of Defence employed 7 of thesurvey ecologists as own staff, fundedentirely from its budget. This team isnow responsible for filling the few gapsleft in the mapping, for drawingup management plans and formonitoring the nature aspects ofthe military estate. A DefenceEnvironmental Policy Plan (‘DefensieMilieubeleidsnota’) was adopted in1999; a renewed version came intoforce 2004. It already includes mapsof every military area showingenvironmental aspects and where totrain and where not. These maps arepart of the standard training kit. The aimis to have comprehensive naturemanagement plans ready for allrelevant military sites by 2006, in orderto comply with Natura 2000requirements as transposed via thenational legislation.

GermanyInventories of natural habitats andspecies on the training areas of theBundeswehr in Germany began in thelate 1980s, but growing publicawareness of the rich ecologicalheritage and undisturbed landscapespreserved there, led the GermanParliament in 1994 to call forsystematic inventories and conservationplans for the military estate. TheMinistry of Defence decided toimplement this mission throughexpert staff within the armed forces,assisted by the federal Germanforestry service (Bundesforstverwaltung)and (for specialist help) by thecompetent authorities for nature,NGOs and universities. 60% ofGerman training areas’ land surfaceis forest, for whose management theBundesforstverwaltung is responsible.It drew up codes in 1995 laying downan extensive management integratingthe requirements of species andforest habitat conservation. Militaryuse of training areas has to takeaccount of the directive forsustainable use of training areas(Richtlinie zur nachhaltigen Nutzungvon Übungsplätzen in Deutschland,July 2002). This stipulates that foreach training area a “Benutzungs-und Bodenbedeckungsplan” (aframework plan confronting thedesired military use with thelandscape constraints) must bedrawn up, based on an analysis ofthe nature inventories, forestry maps,hydrology and geology etc. Inparticular, this analysis identifiessensitive areas where military usemay need to be restricted – but alsoareas where habitats actuallydepend on military use! From thismaster plan, more specific natureand forest management plans, aswell as zoning (which areas are closedto vehicles? to people on foot?),rules for military use, fire preventionetc, are elaborated. The managementplans for those areas designatedNatura 2000 site will also bebased on the master plans.Finally, there are provisions forenvironmental impact assessments ofnew infrastructure plans and othermodifications, with reference toArticle 6 when these concern Natura2000 sites.

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Flemish military sites

LIFE-Nature project

In Belgium, the advent of Natura 2000could almost be said to have had ashock effect. It certainly greatlyaccelerated the military authorities’budding conservation work. Once itwas clear that designation of militarysites which scientifically qualified forNatura 2000 was inescapable, theBelgian Ministry of Defence wastedno time in tackling the question ofintegrating conservation and militaryuse. In May 1999 it signed protocolswith the Flemish and Wallonianauthorities responsible for conservation(within the two regional environmentministries, these are the departmentsAMINAL-Natuur and Division Natureet Forêts respectively).

All military estates proposed forNatura 2000 are covered by theprotocol. Their conservationmanagement will be the responsibilityof the conservation authorities, whoare best qualified to ensure that theNatura 2000 values are met, guidedby joint committees between themilitary and conservation authorities.These committees, one for each site,will elaborate strategic concepts(‘gebiedsvisies’) which are thentranslated into detailed managementplans. In this scheme, there are twoobjectives: military use, which haspriority, and maintenance anddevelopment of nature values, whichis an essential objective wherever itdovetails with military use.

Work on the management planning was however a daunting task, well inexcess of available budgets and staff resources. The Ministry of Defenceand the Flemish conservation authorities decided to turn to LIFE, which couldprovide the necessary additional funds to hire the personnel and expertiseneeded to do the management planning for all 12 military sites proposed forNatura 2000 in Flanders, i.e. the northern half of Belgium. A comprehensiveLIFE-Nature project addressing all Natura 2000 – related issues in the Flemishmilitary estate was indeed approved by the Commission in Sept. 2003.

Management planning is seen as the key to future reconciliation betweenmilitary use and Natura 2000, and is one of the main tasks co-financed bythe LIFE project.

An interesting process is envisaged:> First step: inventories. Answers the question, ‘Where are we?’ Until

recently the Ministry of Defence was reluctant to let outsiders on to itsestate, so few detailed inventories have been made. Systematic surveyingwas launched by the 1999 protocol and LIFE will complete it.

> Second step: strategic concept. Answers the question, ‘Where do wewant to go?’ Largely completed before the beginning of the LIFE project.

> Third step: a management plan for each site. Answers the question, ‘Whatcan/are we going to do?’ This is a focus of the LIFE project.

For each military area covered by the LIFE project, a ‘KNOP’ (Kamp/kwartierNatuur Ontwikkelingsplan) management plan will be made covering the entiresite. In making a KNOP, the nature values of each part of the site are describedplus what the conservation side sees as problems in terms of military use(‘richtplan’), while simultaneously the military authorities describe what theywant to do with the site, now and in the future. Comparing the two parallelvisions shows up the bottlenecks, but also areas of high nature value whichfrom a military perspective are hardly or not claimed for training. Thus thisconfrontation should then, through consensus-finding debate, lead to anintegrated plan laying down the dual use of the site - military use, as priority,coupled to conservation, wherever possible. Within this framework,management and improvement of nature values can be fitted withoutrestricting the necessary training capacity for the armed forces. The KNOPwill allow the availability of the site for training to be determined, in functionof the changing nature requirements during the year (breeding, vegetationcycle etc). The site commander must conform to the KNOP when setting hisplanning. Only for those parts of the site which the KNOP defines as havingprimarily a nature function, a conservation management plan in sensu strictu(‘beheersplan’) will also be made.

For daily implementation of the management plans, a GIS application calledNatuur Tool will be set up by LIFE at each site. It translates all data inputsconcerning conservation management and military use into maps, graphs,tables, photos etc. Each site user will be able to log into the system and callup info. The idea is that the commanders deciding on whether or not toauthorise individual military exercises can check it first, that it can be usedto verify whether particular areas are ‘no go’ or not during exercises and canhelp when deciding on applications by third parties (recreation!) to use partof a military site. The Tool, once operational, will be constantly updated asmilitary activities and nature change over time.

The armed forces’ intention is to extend KNOPs and Natuur Tool to all militarysites after the LIFE project will have tried and tested them at the 12 pilotsites.

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Salisbury Plain

LIFE-Nature project

In the United Kingdom, managementplanning for the natural values on theMinistry of Defence estate was agradual process beginning early in the1990s. An important stimulus was ahigh-level agreement at ministeriallevel (Defence, Environment); afterwhich the Ministry of Defence tookresponsibility for environment andbiodiversity on its own estate. Itset up a dedicated ConservationOffice for this task, and an annualpublication on conservation workon the military estate, ‘Sanctuary’.Most military sites now have aConservation Advisory Group toassist and advise the commanderwith biodiversity-related matters. Thisinternalisation within the defenceadministration of a policy agreed atthe highest level, is significant, as itmeans that Defence ‘owns’ the policyand sets itself targets to achieve,rather than having the policy‘imposed’ by another ministry.

The 1998 Strategic Defence Reviewevaluated the changing militarycontext, concluding that the trendis towards lighter and moremobile forces, which means moremanoeuvres, use of helicoptersetc. Acting on this, a StrategicEnvironmental Appraisal was carriedout. It set sustainability targetsand established environmentalimpact monitoring, military estates’information systems and annualstewardship reports. Full environmentalimpact assessments of all changesto training regimes resulting from theStrategic Defence Review, were to becarried out for all sites (this work iswell under way - for instance, theassessment for Salisbury Plain wasfinished in 2002).

Biodiversity is a leading concern inthese environmental appraisals andimpact assessments. In February2003, the Ministry of Defence enteredinto an agreement with othergovernment departments to secureinternationally important conservationsites on its land, i.e. sites designated

under the Habitats andBirds Directives (Natura2000) or the RamsarConvention. It producedpractical manuals suchas the Good PracticeGuidance Notes for therural military estate (April2003) and the CoastalManagement GuidanceNotes (June 2003),followed in December2003 by the Ministry ofDefence BiodiversityStrategy. Favourableconservation status is to bereached on increasingpercentages of the Ministryof Defence estate, withdeadlines for eachpercentage level. By late2004 48% of the defenceland designated underNatura 2000 wasconsidered to be in afavourable condition.

Within this context, the SalisburyPlain, the British armed forces’ largesttraining area, has right from the startbeen a pioneer and flagship forintegrating conservation and militaryuse. In 1993 English Nature, thestatutory conservation authority,inspired by inventories from the1980s revealing huge resources of,and potential for, chalk grasslands,notified much of the 40,000 haSalisbury Plain Army Training Estateas SSSI, including areas that at thattime were improved grassland,ploughed land and tree plantation.Back then, this was not commonpractice in SSSI designation, whichgenerally tended to be restricted tothe ‘pure’ natural habitats.

Paul Toynton was deployed byEnglish Nature in 1993 to draw up themanagement plan for this large-scaleSSSI. At first he worked from outsidethe training area, ‘commuting’ in towork, but, in order to have dailycontact with the military staff,eventually shifted to an office within

the training estate itself. This certainlyhelped to build up partnership anddialogue. He is now employed directlyby the Defence Estates. Althoughthere was initial scepticism,awareness of the conservationaspects among the military staff hasrisen steadily and conservation isnow taken seriously. The ArmyTraining Estate, responsible forSalisbury, appointed a liaison officerto act as Toynton’s counterpart (in2004 Lt Colonel Roger Fellowes). Thetwo work closely together to examinewhich exercises can go where when,where repair or restoration work isneeded, what should be off-limitsbecause of its fragility, and so on.


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When parts of the Salisbury Plain were also designated a Natura 2000 site, LIFE-Nature funding became available toboost the work and deepen the partnership between the Ministry of Defence Army Training Estate and English Nature.

To prepare the habitat restoration works the LIFE-Nature project is co-financing, first an ecological assessment wasmade of restoration opportunities (removal of scrub from Annex I grasslands). The Army Training Estate then assessedwhich of the scrub areas identified for possible clearance were necessary for training purposes. The same exercise wasdone for tree plantations on former chalk grassland, which had been planted to provide cover for troops on manoeuvre.Possible plantations for removal were graded into 5 categories according to potential conservation value, and werethen compared to training needs. These processes culminated in a series of maps showing where scrub and plantationscan be cleared without any impact on military training and where they must be retained. Of course this entailedcompromise between the ideal ‘wish-list’ of nature conservation and the requirements of the military, so that not allscrub and plantations proposed for clearance were finally removed. A good example of this is Sidbury Hill, where 40 haconifers were felled, opening up the grassland and creating space for follow-up grazing, but the top of the hill remainswooded and will be used as cover in military exercises. One hectare of conifer plantation has been left on one slope,again as a woodland feature for military exercises.

The project also formulated and tested improved grazing management (see below) as well as a series of measures forspecies.

Ensuring that the restoration and improved management of the Natura 2000 values implemented by LIFE is continuedlong-term, was another important task of the project, which therefore fed its results into the Integrated Land ManagementPlan for the Salisbury Plain being elaborated as a statutory task outside the LIFE context. The Plan was completed inMarch 2003, following an environmental assessment of the changes to training activity arising from the Strategic DefenceReview, while the Plan for Porton Down was completed Oct. 2003. Both Plans incorporate all the actions andrecommendations from the LIFE project and their necessary follow-up, thereby anchoring the longer-term continuity ofwhat LIFE has set in motion.

The collaborative effort to carry the LIFE project forward has helped cement the partnership between military andconservation agencies, who are both looking at continuing it beyond the end of the project. The project steering groupis even formulating an ‘exit strategy’, i.e. how to continue the work after the end of LIFE.

One of the partners’ activities isresearch to work out a methodologyfor weighting, i.e. calculating theamount of damage caused bydifferent kinds of exercise underdifferent conditions. If this is too big,then the type of exercise responsible

for it can not enter certain areas, orfor no more than 24 hours etc. Wetweather for instance exacerbatesimpact, and this is being entered byinserting a wetness layer into a GISand seeing which weightings thenexceed the danger level. To provide

the necessary accurate data,measuring devices have been set upat various points in the Plain to gaugesoil humidity.

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How LIFE can help: Implementing management plans

After the first environment strategywas elaborated by the Ministry ofDefence in 1993 and a pilot projectfor nature management planning wascarried out with the Danish Forest andNature Agency (the competentnational authority for conservation)between 1991 and 1994, an agreementwith the Forest and Nature Agencywas concluded in 1995 to preparenature management plans for the 16largest military areas, soon extendedto cover all Armed Forces firingranges and exercise areas (32,000 hain total). The Forest and NatureAgency assigned a four-man team tothis task. Each plan took about 18months to elaborate, and the last onewas completed in 2004.

These nature management plans arebinding agreements between theForest and Nature Agency and theArmed Forces, valid for 15 years.They aim at safeguarding militaryareas as optimal training groundswhile at the same time conservingnature. Each plan has 5 parts:

1. Inventory and status quo, ofspecies and habitats, archaeologicalor geological values, currentmilitary use, current recreationalactivities and public access, anylegal restrictions on use of thetraining area and national andinternational obligations.

2. Needs of the military and requests

The Danish Armed Forces took care ofmanagement planning at an earlystage, but for the implementation oftheir plans they have inter alia turnedto LIFE-Nature (through the projectDanish Sand Dunes). This showsanother way in which LIFE can help:not by funding the managementplanning, but by funding itsimplementation on the ground.

for use from others (e.g. recreationgroups).

3. Mediation (i.e. between protectionof site values and requests/needsfor use).

4. Action plan, comprising futureconservation initiatives and takinginto account future exercise needs.It stipulates directives for raisingwater levels; clearing and plantingvegetation; recurring habitatmanagement; designating areasfor new exercise facilities etc.


5. Financing.

The central output of each plan is adigital base map: “the exercise mapfor military use”, which lists all militaryinstallations, training grounds andvulnerable areas, the types of habitatand the way the area is currentlybeing used. Various provisions ineach management plan may call fordirecting exercises around sensitiveareas and ensuring that the terrain isnot damaged to such an extent thatits conservation value and itspotential for training deteriorates. The

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exercise map will then illustrate theseprovisions and highlight the sensitiveareas. It will mark out compulsoryroutes for tracked vehicles, trafficregulations, areas designated forexercises involving fire or digging orfor shelling or other special activities,areas where exercises can not beheld etc. Sensitive nature areas arezoned into categories:

Category I :Natural values have greater prioritythan military applications. No militaryactivities permitted apart fromwalking along tracks and drivingalong existing roads.

Category II :All military activities are permitted inprinciple but with individualrestrictions. Tracked vehicles have tobe driven along existing routes.

Category III :Intensive exercise area – especiallyfor tracked vehicles. No restrictions– free movement of vehicles.

The exercise map is on GIS so that itcan be printed out, written on withpens and taken along by officers onmanoeuvre.

The plans specifically allow foradaptation to the Armed Forces’changing situation and any suddenneed to do exercises (for instance,because of sudden deployment of apeace-keeping force). So, in contrastto traditional management plans, theyare dynamic and flexible. If a relativelysmall change is needed (e.g. nightfiring instead of daytime firing) theMinistry of Defence and Nature andForest Agency discuss it bilaterally,reach an agreement and carry on. Ifthe change is more substantial, amore formal procedure to change theplan is launched, with publicconsultation. This constant possibilityof adaptation makes the naturemanagement plans a suitableinstrument for the preservation ofnatural interests in military areas,according to the Danish Ministry ofDefence. Its representatives have

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stated at several recent fora, such asthe July 2004 Salisbury workshop,that Natura 2000 has not yet causedany problems for the ArmedForces because military use andconservation values are governed bythese nature management planswhich are not written in stone but canbe adapted to changing circumstances.Article 6, the reasoning goes, issatisfied on two counts: Article 6.1 bythe existence of the plan itself, Article6.3 and 6.4 by the provisions in eachplan that changes can be made inconsultation with the environmentauthorities.

Besides defining sensitive areas andzoning military use, the naturemanagement plans proposerestoration activities to improve theconservation status of the militaryestate, such as clearing trees fromheathland, excavating pools foramphibians, restoring wetlands etc.Such tasks cost money, and hereLIFE can help. The Danish ArmedForces are thus involved in a LIFE-Nature project to restore sand dunehabitats at 11 sites along the coastof northern and western Jutland. Thismeans clearing encroaching trees(including non-native trees, primarilyPinus mugo), complemented with“mosaic burning” at some places inorder to speed up the regenerationof the typical dune vegetation,

LIFE-Nature project

Danish sand dunes (LIFE02NAT/DK/008584)


especially on land affected byammonium depositions and nutrientenrichment.

One of the eleven project subsites,Kallesmaersk Hede, is a militarytraining field, designated pSCI,located along the coast 30 km northof Esbjerg. The Danish Ministry ofDefense is involved in the LIFE-Natureproject as an active participant. Theproject as a whole is dealing with5,600 ha. Almost 10% (472 ha) isArmed Forces land in theKallesmaersk Hede subsite, which isbeing cleared of trees and some of itis also being burned afterwards. TheArmed Forces’ field training camp atOksbøl contributes its “fleet” ofvarious heavy construction and earth-moving machines, and staffcompetent to use them. They carryout, under technical guidance fromthe project beneficiary, the treeclearing and mosaic burning insidethe Kallesmaersk Hede. As a result,50% of the cost of the work is beingborne by LIFE.

The Armed Forces have also beenengaged within the LIFE-Natureproject for the restoration ofamphibian habitats and excavation ofnew ones, for the benefit of Bufocalamita and Rana arvalis (Annex IVof Habitats Directive). So here tooLIFE-Nature is helping them carry outthe action plans laid down in theirnature management plans.

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How LIFE helps: environmentaltrainingOnce a management plan reconciling military use with conservation requirements has been prepared, officers

and troops must be trained in using it, otherwise it will remain a dead letter.

In Belgium, integration ofenvironmental concerns, in thebroadest sense of the word, gatheredpace in the Armed Forces duringthe 1990s. The Strategic Plan forthe Modernisation of the BelgianArmy (Plan stratégique pour lamodernisation de l’Armée belge2000-2015) devotes a chapter toenvironmental protection. A divisionEnvironment (headed by Lt ColonelJohan Theetaert) was set up withinthe Armed Forces’ department forsocial aspects and well-being.

In Sept. 2000 the Ministry of Defence’senvironment charter (Milieuhandvest),which focuses on sustainability andlessening the environmental impactof military activities, launched aprogramme of environmental trainingand awareness for military staff. TheMinistry of Defence established anEnvironmental Training Centre atJambes, open to any officers andNCOs who voluntarily opted forsustainability training. Looking at

In Denmark, where the Armed Forceshave systematically addressedmanagement planning, personnel istrained to put the plans into effect.The armed forces organize a naturecare course for everyone working onthe maintenance of the environmentin its estate. Persons are appointedand trained in each barracks to makesure that the nature management planfor the area in question is implemented.

In 1990 a department for environmentaltraining was opened in the German

armed forces school in Sonthofen,which has trained thousands ofofficers and troops since then.Training courses in environmentalprotection are also given at theacademy for military administrationand technology in Mannheim. Aneducational folder with basicenvironmental principles andexamples from military practice, withtips for simple but effective things todo, has been distributed to all unitsin the armed forces since 1991.


LIFE-Nature project

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How LIFE helps: environmental training p. 25

This project too has devoted attentionto making sure the message filtersdown to the end users.

An innovative idea was a one-dayTeam Building Exercise, held onApril 11th 2002, which involvedmilitary and conservation stafffrom across the project partnership.The exercise was a treasurehunt involving teams of peoplenavigating across the Plain pickingup clues and answering questionsbefore being directed to the nextrendez-vous point. At strategicpoints project representatives spokeabout particular issues relating toconservation and military use ofthe site. This was a success and asecond one was held in April 2004especially for new personnel.

A ‘conservation briefing pack’ for allusers of the military training area isplanned.

The LIFE-Nature project covering all the military Natura 2000 sites in northern Belgium (Flanders), which began inSept. 2003 and will last over 5 years, has as one of its principal tasks the preparation of management plans,followed, during the selfsame project, by training military personnel to use these plans. The idea is to instil a ‘dutyof care’, so that the military staff know what they can and what they can not do. First, LIFE will ‘train the trainers’in Natura 2000 conservation management and develop training packages for future use. Next a network of Ministryof Defence environmental advisers and coordinators, trained in conservation management, will be built up coveringall twelve sites, with refresher courses every 5 years. The military staff charged with using and updating the NatuurTool, the special GIS-based reference for nature and military data which the LIFE project will develop, will betrained in its use. As all Ministry of Defence operational staff (24,000) have to do field exercises every 2 years inorder to keep skills honed, this means approximately 12,000 using the military training areas each year. LIFE willensure that all are given a one-hour briefing on responsible nature use before each exercise. By the end of theLIFE-Nature project, conservation awareness should be part of the basic training of each military employee.

nature in particular, when partnershipswere concluded with the conservationauthorities, staff from the regionalenvironment ministries held excursionsand lectures in military camps – pollshad shown that the staff on theground was often not aware of the

Salisbury Plain

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sites’ ecological value. Joint seminarswere held in 2001 (one in Flanders,one in Wallonia) about naturemanagement in military areas.

To further lessen the cumulativeimpact of exercises on nature, the use

of simulators for training purposesbefore embarking on real-life exerciseswill be promoted by the BelgianMinistry of Defence, parallel to thework undertaken by the LIFE project.

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How LIFE helps: restoration ofhabitatsBecause the armed forces have their own tasks and objectives, military areas have traditionally not been

managed with biodiversity in mind.

Consequently, although the naturalheritage in the military areasremained shielded from economicdevelopment, dynamic habitatswhich spontaneously evolve towardsother habitat types, sometimes oflesser conservation value, or changecharacter if not actively managed,declined over time. For instance,heathland or species-rich grasslandbecame covered in bushes and treesthrough succession. Wetlandssuffered desiccation as water tablesaround military areas dropped as aresult of drainage and hydraulicengineering. Sometimes military landhad been made available to farmers

or foresters, who had converted partsto intensive production land ormonocultural planted woodland.

With rising environmental awarenessin the late 20th century, some militaryauthorities began, within the meansat their disposal, investing in work torestore the degraded parts of theirnatural heritage.

In the Netherlands, the armed forces’service Dienst Gebouwen Werken enTerreinen (DGW&T), part of the DefenceInterservice Command, manages theestate, primarily for military use, but asa secondary target, for conservation

also. Drawing on its budget and staff,DGW & T has been restoring habitats,e.g. converting planted conifemonocultures to more mixedforests; restoring heaths infestedby Molinia grasses and woodyovergrowth through sod cutting,grazing and controlled burning, etc.Their publication ‘Defensie in natuur enlandschap’ (see Annex II) gives a goodoverview.

The Danish Armed Forces’ booklet‘Nature’s Defence’ (see Annex I) givesa similar overview of nature restorationwork on military areas funded fromown resources.

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In 1994, the French Defence Ministryestablished an environmental actionfund (Fonds d’Intervention pourl’Environnement FIE) to finance worklike forest restoration, clearingovergrowth and creating wetlands. Ithas concluded many contracts withoutside bodies specialised inconservation work, l ike theConservatoires Régionaux d’EspacesNaturels or the Parc NaturelsRégionaux, with the national forestryservice Office National des Forêts andwith individual farmers, under whichthey take over the management ofcertain sections of military land.

Designation of many military areas asNatura 2000 site has maderestoration far more prominent. TheNatura 2000 obligation to attain ormaintain a favourable conservationstate, if necessary by actively workingagainst natural processes likesuccession from open land towoodland, means that the armedforces face massive investments toclear the backlog of benign neglectof dynamic habitats on their estateand to boost the ecological quality ofdegraded land. One of LIFE-Nature’score objectives is to provide co-finance for this kind of work.

How LIFE helps: restoration of habitats p. 27

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Salisbury Plain

LIFE-Nature project

The British Armed Forces’ trainingarea Salisbury Plain contains,together with the nearby research andtesting/training site DSTL PortonDown, the largest remaining block ofchalk grassland left in England(14,000 ha). Elsewhere, thesegrasslands, which once covered thedowns of southern England, havebeen ploughed up for arable land.

Yet, all was not perfect. The openlandscape of Salisbury Plain hadbeen planted with trees here andthere to create cover for exercisingtroops. Furthermore, where parts ofthe Plain suffered from too intensivefarming, other parts lost ecologicalvalue because of a lack of farming.This was a consequence of pastmilitary administrations. Before a co-ordinated governance was introducedin the 1990s, Salisbury Plain had beendivided into three separate militaryranges. The eastern range was usedfor infantry exercises with blankmunitions, so, as there was no

danger, this part was rented out tofarmers. Intensive farming was thusa problem for conservation here. Thecentral range was used for artillerytraining: farming was kept out of theimpact zone (which stayed open byburning), but the rest of the areawas rented for grazing. The westernrange included a live firing range too,but in contrast to the central rangeits commanders had decided thatfarming would clash with the trainingand so grazing had petered outdecades ago, so that large areas ofchalk grassland were overgrown withscrub and rank grass.

Porton Down, with its rich chalkgrassland habitats, junipers andunique ‘antscape’ of hundredsof anthil ls populated by Lasiusflavus (see photos right and below),was also affected by scrub andself-seeded pine encroachmentbecause farming was ended when theMinistry of Defence bought the sitein 1916. P

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The partnership which had grown since 1993 between English Nature and the Ministry of Defence had already producedinventories and management plans highlighting the loss of habitats in the western range and Porton Down. However,restoration work to reverse this would be expensive. This is where the LIFE-Nature project stepped in. In order tosignificantly increase the chalk grasslands and other habitats and species of European significance in the parts ofSalisbury Plain and Porton Down designated under Natura 2000, LIFE-Nature is providing funds for:> Removing 220 ha of scrub thickets covering former chalk grassland.> Treating 219 ha of scrub with non-persistent herbicides to prevent regrowth of areas cut over by the previous action,

or to eliminate widely scattered young scrub in good-quality chalk grassland before it can grow too tall and dense.> Topping of 200 ha scrub to prevent shading out of chalk grassland and persistence of scrub in the sward.> Cutting down tree plantations which occupied former chalk grassland. These plantations, as described above under

management planning, were selected jointly by the Army Training Estate and English Nature, looking both atconservation benefit and the importance of the plantation for training. 100 ha broadleaved and 40 ha conifer plantationis being cut down.

> Cutting down a total of 40 ha self-sown pine in chalk grassland.> Removal of 53 ha scrub to give more room to stands of Juniperus communis, which were becoming smothered.> The juniper population at Porton Down comprises two even-aged stands of 40 and 110 years old. Intense grazing by

rabbits prevents the establishment of new seedlings. To protect seedlings from rabbits, 8 plots of about 0.5 ha eachare fenced off (exclosures). Near these regeneration trial plots, rabbits are kept down by gassing, ferreting or shooting.

> One-off actions to improve habitats for the Annex II butterfly Euphydryas aurinia and the Annex I bird Burhinusoedicnemus (scrub clearing , fencing, creation of breeding plots etc). These actions are described in detail elsewherein this brochure.

The habitat restoration work being done by the LIFE project illustrates some of the challenges peculiar to working in amilitary site, but also how technical solutions can be found.

One planned project action was to remove old tanks and other military equipment from Battlesbury Bowl, the formersite of a Combined Arms Firepower Display, so as to allow grazing there. Before any of the equipment which served astargets for the firepower displays could be removed, a full EOC (explosive ordnance clearance) had to be undertaken.For the LIFE project, the task of clearing the munitions fired at the targets was scoped by the Army (Royal Engineers),which discovered that a specific anti-tank round had been fired at the targets in Battlesbury Bowl. Recently, elsewherein the UK, there had been a civilian death as a result of this type of round exploding during an ordnance clearanceexercise. The Ministry of Defence had since, for health and safety considerations, banned explosive ordnance clearancebeing undertaken by civilian contractors. The alternative to civilian contractors is the use of specifically trained militaryRoyal Engineer EOC teams. However, as a result of higher military operational priorities during the LIFE project (notablyIraq), this was not feasible, so that the Battlesbury Bowl action had to be postponed.

Scrub clearance by the project has also been confronted with the risk of unexploded munitions. Several areas of densescrub, mostly in or near live firing ranges, could not be cleared by civilian contractors before an EOC team would havefully scoped the task and passed it as safe. The solution found was using an “Armtrac” armoured tractor, normally usedfor clearing mines, which was fitted with flails and sent into the scrub. It was first tried in January 2003 and turned outto be effective and efficient, yet fulfilling the Army’s strict health and safety criteria. This machine is now being used forscrub clearance in all high-risk areas for the remainder of the project.

The British Armed Forces Ordnance Clearance committed itself to clear some other areas so that these too can berestored – a positive example of partnership within the military.


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Conservation management is longoverdue in most Belgian military sites– hitherto attention was only paid tothe military use. In some military areasparts are leased to farmers, who haveturned them into maize fields andmanured grassland, while some otherparts have been afforested and areexploited for timber.

That hands-on management is thekey is shown by the munitions depotat Molenheide (Zonhoven). For safetyreasons, the land around the storagebuildings has been kept open, andhere very interesting plant and insectcommunities are found on the fossildunes, while the rest of the depot hasreverted to shrub and successionwoodland.

In the 1990s, there were alreadyindividual, ad hoc contacts andmanagement agreements betweenmilitary commanders and natureconservation bodies, often NGOs.Thus the NGO Natuurpunt managedparts of the Helchteren training areaalong the Zwarte Beek, adjoining itsown reserves. There were agreementswith the NGO Vleermuizenwerkgroepto monitor bat hibernation in old forts.However, this was not systematic orcoordinated. In the same vein, somemilitary camps took an interest in theirnatural heritage. A good example isalso found in Wallonia (Laglandmilitary camp, see below LIFE-Natureproject Marais calcaires Lorraine).


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The designation of most of the Belgian military estate as Natura 2000 site brought an obligation to ensure a favorableconservation status, i.e. carry out restoration work to halt decline of dynamic habitats, but it also brought access to the LIFEfund. The Ministry of Defence and the Flemish conservation authorities decided to turn to LIFE, which could provide thenecessary additional funds to give the restoration work in the military Natura 2000 sites in northern Belgium (Flanders) amajor impetus and speed it up.

Contacts were laid with the Salisbury Plain LIFE-Nature project and with the Dutch Ministry of Defence to tap their experience,and an application was submitted to the Commission in Oct. 2002 for a LIFE-Nature project, which was approved in Sept.2003.

In this project, LIFE-Nature is funding initial management in 12 military sites covering 9,400 ha. This breaks down as:> tree and shrub felling over 1,266 ha to restore heaths and grasslands, and elimination of in total 855 ha of

invasive Prunus serotina trees scattered throughout the sites. Because these heaths and grasslands have not beenmanaged (mowing, grazing – whether for traditional subsistence farming or for conservation purposes is immaterial),trees have been able to take hold, grow and spread. Eventually they would become woodland. Removing these trees isessential to reinvigorate the heaths and grasslands. Prunus serotina (black cherry) is a species native to southern andeastern North America which was introduced to Europe in the 19th century as an ornamental tree and later planted asshade-tolerant species in forest plantations, where it became a pest. The main reason for eliminating it is that it behavesas an invasive species. Birds love the seeds and aid in the distribution of Prunus serotina. The litter is easily composted,so this implies that the species also changes the soil characteristics.

> initial mowing of 255 ha heaths and grasslands. This is needed to prevent the spread of invasive scrub species.> sod-cutting 175 ha heaths and fossil dunes, including removal of topsoil from former maize fields. As a result of

lack of management and of increased nutrient influx, grasses (Molinia) have become dominant in the heathland as well ason the fossil dunes. To give the seeds of heather and other targeted flora lying dormant in the soil (the seed bank) achance to germinate, sod-cutting will be carried out. Sod-cutting means that sods (plants with topsoil/root layer) areremoved. This work has to be done carefully to allow the seed bank to germinate. It is therefore a relatively expensivetechnique and cannot take place over very large areas – the 175 ha in the LIFE project is already quite large. As the‘original flora’ re-establishes itself from the seed bank, conservation-oriented management (grazing or mowing) will thenallow the seeds produced by the restored vegetation to spread and to germinate. The removal of topsoil from formermaizefields is needed because lengthy manuring has made the soil too eutrophic (phosphates) so that a restoration ofheaths or oligotrophic species-rich grasslands is no longer possible. The nutrient enrichment means that ruderal species– often vigorously competitive grasses able to suppress the target species – dominate. After the enriched topsoil hasbeen removed, the ground is often covered with plant matter raked from existing heaths, which contains enough seeds tokick-start heather growth.

> excavating or re-opening pools, former peat diggings and wet depressions (23 ha). The vegetation of the earlysuccession stages in open water is, after a number of years (20-30 – the time depends on several factors), replaced byother vegetation (reeds, brook forest, large sedge communities, etc. - depending on management and the abiotic conditions).Removing this secondary vegetation will allow the early succession stages to return. Peat diggings with dystrophic water(i.e. with a high content of humic acids from dissolved peat) are quite rare, and so is the vegetation that will establishitself in these peat diggings after re-opening them (e.g. vegetations dominated by water soldier - Stratiotes aloides - andquaking bogs).

> rolling back succession from 5 ha quaking bogs. This is for the same reasons and to achieve the same targets as thepreceding bullet point.

> converting 1.5 km of brooks which have been straightened and regulated, into meandering beds or shallowergradients. These brooks used to meander through the valleys until they were canalized or straightened. A meanderingstream has more “ecological niches” than a canalized stream (diverse velocities, more gradients, different associatedflora and fauna) and the surrounding area is hence also better integrated into the watershed (natural flooding, higherwater levels, less changes in the water level and smaller ecological amplitudes over the year, ……).

Interesting is a subprogramme of preventive burning – in dry summers overgrown heaths in firing ranges can catch fire, andthese raging wildfires can be damaging to vegetation and species, so to avoid this happening, overgrowth will be burnt offin winter in controlled fires (which mimic traditional management and actually lead to interesting ecological processes).


Photo ©Photo ©Photo ©Photo ©Photo © Marcel Van WaerebekePhoto ©Photo ©Photo ©Photo ©Photo © Marcel Van WaerebekePhoto ©Photo ©Photo ©Photo ©Photo © Marcel Van Waerebeke


How LIFE helps: recurringmanagementDynamic habitats, once restored, need to be ‘used’ in appropriate ways if they are to be prevented from

evolving into something else. This could be mowing, grazing, coppicing, controlled burning…

This ‘recurring management’ workcan be done by farmers undercontract, or by staff. What LIFE-Nature can do, is co-financeexperiments to find the right kind ofrecurring management andinvestments in the equipment orinfrastructure needed to get it off theground.

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The UK Ministry of Defence andEnglish Nature agreed in 1993 to drawup a management plan for theSalisbury Plain training area, with itsunique species-rich chalk grasslands.It soon became apparent that themost acute threats came not so muchfrom the military use as from thefarmers. Much of the Plain is farmed(there are 43 tenant farmers). In orderto boost yields, farmers wereapplying fertiliser, or overwinteringstock on the chalk grasslands(because these are drier than thelowlands) and feeding them fodderthere. These practices were bringingnutrients to the chalk grassland soiland so leading to deterioratingecological quality of these sensitivegrasslands.

This was addressed prior to theLIFE project by drawing up farmmanagement plans for each individualfarmer and requiring consents foractivities like ploughing. Initiallyfarmers complained that this woulddrive them out of business, but noneactually stopped. Although farmerson the military lands are not eligible

which cannot accept miles of fencesand large groups of livestock whichcan’t be moved. Yet, because theland has to remain available formilitary training exercises at relativelyshort notice, livestock have to be keptin enclosed areas. Consequently,electric fences are used to pen theanimals in mobile enclosures ofabout 8 ha each (photo below)which are shifted around the Plain. Tomake it economically worthwhile forthe farmer, he has to put a minimumnumber of animals into an enclosure– about 60-70 cows per 8 ha block,for instance, which is quite intensiveand causes overgrazing in theenclosures. This was nevertheless heldto be acceptable because the Plainis so big and the enclosures keepmoving, so that one ended up with amosaic of intensive and less-intensiveand recovering land, i.e. diversity instructure. A five-metre strip oftall vegetation is always leftbetween enclosures, as refuges forinvertebrates. These strips formstriking grids across the landscape.

Salisbury Plain

LIFE-Nature project

for agri-environment schemes underthe English interpretation of the RuralDevelopment Regulation, they areoffered low rents. According to theSalisbury Plain conservation officer,Paul Toynton, the recipe lay inworking together and understandingeach others’ needs. An intensiveliaison with the farmers was built upand sustained via monthly planningmeetings, where the farmers say whatthey want to do. This is then lookedat by the conservation officer and bythe armed forces training officer andif neither has an objection, a greenlight is given. If there is a problem,alternative locations are looked for.

Thus before LIFE, the site managerhad succeeded in stopping thedegradation of the chalk grasslands.But although farming was no longerdegrading the valuable environments,there was still scope for improvementsin grazing to further boost theconservation status of the SalisburyPlain.

Classic grazing in fenced paddocksis restricted by the military activities,

How LIFE helps: reccuring management p. 33

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Nevertheless, this system of mobile enclosures was not optimal. Neither for nature, because of the local overgrazing inthe pens and the unnatural grid pattern, nor for the tenant farmers, who are unable to go for agri-environment funds,and who cannot achieve a critical mass in terms of grazing to guarantee long-term viability in a very precarious market.

The LIFE-Nature project gave the opportunity to invest in a trial of a new approach to grazing which aimed toboth improve the economies of scale for the tenant farmers and the conservation status of the site. A mobileflock of sheep and cattle, guided by a herdsman, would be allowed to roam over larger areas of the Plain in function ofthe planned military manoeuvres and training schedules, rather than being confined to fenced enclosures for longperiods of time (which in turn leads to local overgrazing). This would in turn increase conservation management options,providing greater flexibility and sensitivity to grazing management overall.

LIFE-Nature provided the start-up costs to employ a herdsman in June 2003, who manages 120 cows and calves(purchased by a local farmer parallel to LIFE). It is also paying for boreholes to supply water for the livestock, and aquad bike to allow the herdsman to manage the animals more effectively. The western third of the Plain had been out-of-bounds to farming for a long time, so that there had been a loss of grassland habitat to scrub succession. LIFEcleared scrub here and so reopened such land to grazing. In 2003 the herdsman began grazing an area of 1,200 ha inthis western part, which had not been grazed for 60 years (photo above). There is no fencing but the cows are pennedat night. After the project, the herdsman should become self-financing. If this open free-range grazing is successful itwould be a major improvement and might mean that the whole Plain can be grazed by three or four such herds insteadof the mobile enclosures. Both English Nature and the Army training Estate are watching the experiment with greatinterest.

The LIFE project did not neglect the ‘normal’ grazing either. It began by mapping the grazing activity on the Plain,but this proved challenging as it is widely dispersed over the huge 14,000 ha block of chalk grassland. Staff resourceswere insufficient to enable the use of GPS to pinpoint the exact location of each temporary enclosure. Fortunately, thearmy range marshals gave a helping hand by providing daily hand-drawn maps recording the location of each enclosure.These maps were then translated into a digital record on the Defence Estates GIS mapping system to provide an overallrecord of the year’s grazing activity. The outcome was that on average 1,876 ha of grassland on Salisbury Plain is undergrazing in any single month, equating to an average of 234 separate enclosures present each month.

Because grazing is essential for the management of chalk grassland – in its absence, the habitat slowly reverts to scrub– the LIFE-Nature project is investing considerable effort in maintaining grazing where it already occurs on chalk grassland(1,250 ha) and on bringing it to areas where the grazing mapping and ecological condition assessments have shownthat the land is failing to meet criteria of good conservation status due to undergrazing, and of course to former scrubor plantation land which has been cleared and restored to chalk grassland (2,150 ha altogether).

Surveys have already shown that plants and invertebrates are responding positively to the grazing management introducedby LIFE.

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Another action co-financed by the LIFE-Nature project concerns measures in favour of Burhinus oedicnemus(stone curlew, a bird on Annex I of the Birds Directive – one third of total UK population occurs here). The employmentof a stone curlew project officer (Phil Sheldrake) in November 2001, thanks to LIFE funds, made it possible to systematicallytackle the issues, in particular intensive monitoring of the birds and their behaviour, and promotion and management of‘breeding plots’ (1-2 ha blocks where the ground is deliberately made bare or sparsely-vegetated during the breedingseason, see photo below) which the curlew needs for successful reproduction.

41 plots started in the military training area prior to LIFE were taken in hand by the project officer – each plot was grid-referenced at the beginning of the LIFE project and a summary table of management actions (appropriate cultivationand clearance of seasonal vegetation) provided to the farmer. Grazing (preferably) and mowing is done around stonecurlew nesting plots to provide optimal feeding habitat (1.25 to 6 ha) within close proximity (1 km) to breeding sites.Where it occurs, scrub is removed within 200 metres of breeding plots (20 ha scrub in all) to create additional foraginghabitat, and stone curlew have indeed been observed feeding in these cleared areas.

Besides maintaining the existing plots, the project seeks to increase their number. Mr Sheldrake negotiated 22 newplots (average size a little over one hectare) with farmers in a space of two years, half of which were effectively used in2003 by stone curlew, with a dozen breeding attempts.

Because stone curlew gather on thearable land on the fringes of, oroutside, the military training areaduring autumn roost gatherings, theproject also undertook action for thebirds’ benefit here. Curlew plots doqualify for agri-environment supportoutside the military training area(Countryside Stewardship Schemes,with payments for arable farmingpractices favourable to birds, likeover-wintering stubble, stubblefollowed by fallow, wild bird andpollen and nectar crops….), and sothe LIFE stone curlew project officeris promoting such contracts amongfarmers, with success. Twelve newplots had been started by farmersunder the Country StewardshipSchemes by 2004.

To reduce predation on stonecurlew, LIFE is financing predatorcontrol measures: erection ofelectric fencing, shooting of foxesand crows. Vulnerable stone curlewbreeding plots are marked to avoiddamage by military activities (4plots) or by recreational walkers (5plots in the eastern Plain, wherethere is more public access).


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Finally, LIFE-Nature is alsofunding a monitoring programmedesigned to provide information onthe effectiveness of the techniquesused in the various restoration andrecurring management actions, andto develop an SPA/pSCI-widemonitoring strategy to trackconservation status (in this way,LIFE-Nature is helping the SalisburyPlain Natura 2000 site managers laythe groundwork for the monitoringand reporting required under Article17 of the Habitats Directive). Thisprogramme monitors the effect ofactions such as scrub and plantationremoval, grazing etc. on vegetationcomposition and structure ofgrasslands, as well as on associatedindicator species. It also monitorsthe effects of the actions undertakenfor the benefit of Juniperuscommunis, Burhinus oedicnemusand Euphydryas aurinia. A MonitoringGroup was set up to plan thelogistics and coordinate the work.Most of the work is planned for theperiod 2003-5 and full monitoringreports will be ready at the end ofthe LIFE-Nature project.

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In Flanders, the training area ofBeverlo (Leopoldsburg) was a pioneerin terms of recurring management –at the start of the new millennium, italready had a nature managementplan (which envisaged more intensiveuse of the less valuable areas tospare the more valuable ones) andheath grazing projects (one wasco-financed by the ERDF!). Butotherwise, recurring management,like restoration of degeneratinghabitats, was still very much in anembryonic phase within the militaryareas in Flanders.


LIFE-Nature project


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Consequently, after its restoration work, the LIFE-Nature project for the Flemish military areas will kick off therecurring follow-up management (mowing and grazing). This involves investment in fencing, drinking troughs etc.,intensive follow-up mowing of cleared areas and employment of a shepherd for grazing the largest block of restoredland (in Limburg). This is all co-financed by LIFE, which also funds staff time to lay contacts with farmers or NGOs totake care of recurring management of smaller blocks.

The planned recurring management work will also help military use directly. The Ursel air base, one of the LIFEsubsites, had Nardus grasslands around the runways right into the 1980s, but ‘improvement’ of the grassland by spreadingmanure has led to almost total destruction of these grasslands since. Yet, this manured grassland is attractive tocorvidae, pigeons and other relatively heavy birds. Birdstrike is always a risk at airfields, but heavier birds cause greaterdamage when they collide with jet engines. The LIFE project will restore the natural grasslands here by reversing thepast damage and installing ecologically correct management. This will both increase biodiversity and heighten aircraftsafety. As already demonstrated in conservation projects (and by the Dutch Armed Forces), restoring ecologicallybarren intensively manured and mowed grasslands to nutrient-poor, herb-rich lands with a wide range of species is notonly a win for nature. While invertebrates and small birds increase in numbers, heavier birds like crows, gulls, lapwingsand pigeons which are associated with nutrient-rich, lawn-like grassland and do not like nutrient-poor grasslands withtall unmowed vegetation, decline – a win for aircraft safety.

Finally, LIFE-Nature will also fund establishment of a monitoring programme to assess results and trends.


How LIFE helps: communicating withthe general publicBecause the public often has little knowledge of the armed forces’ efforts to conserve and enhance natural

values on its estate, and may have misconceptions about the environmental impact of military activities, informing

it is an important task.

On the other hand, there is apotential drawback. Publicisinghitherto little-known natural valuesin a given military area may incitepeople to want to come and visit it,or use it for recreation. Quite apartfrom conservation objections(disturbance), the military is oftenreluctant to have an influx of visitorsbecause of requirements forsecrecy, the dangers of unexplodedmunitions, etc.

This means that communicating theecological value of military areascan be a delicate balancing act.

The French armed forces giveextensive information on theirprogrammes and efforts forconservation on their website. The

Dutch and Danish armed forces haveproduced illustrated brochures for thegeneral public explaining how theycombine military use and natureconservation on their estate. Whenmanagement plans were beingprepared for Danish military sites,local authorities, conservation NGOsand recreational interest groups wereinvolved in the process. In so doing,they became aware of the military’sefforts and activities, and gained asense of ownership and acceptanceof the management plans, which thusgained wider support. Involvingstakeholders in the Danish militarymanagement planning process led toa greater understanding in the localcommunity of the Armed Forces’activities, which is a positive PR spin-off for the military.

Equally important is keepingcolleagues within the armed forcesinformed of how conservation workis progressing and what the resultsare. Especially if they have beenasked or trained to make specialefforts for the benefit of conservationrequirements, officers, troops andsupport staff within the militaryestablishment should be told whatthis has achieved, otherwise they areunlikely to see much point to carryon making these efforts.

The UK Ministry of Defenceunderstood this years ago, when itstarted the magazine ‘Sanctuary’which reports on biodiversity andconservation activities on militaryland and is specifically aimed atMinistry of Defence staff.

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One of the objectives of this LIFE project is raising awareness, both among the Armed Forces using the Salisbury Plainand the local communities around the military training estates.

The project is producing high-quality newsletters, posters, panels, etc. with information on LIFE and Natura 2000 andconservation requirements for the Natura 2000 species and habitats. It has already gained good media coverage(newspapers, specialist and professional magazines and publications, radio, television).

The annual newsletters highlighting the LIFE project, the six information boards on chalk grassland habitat erected atkey points, and the 18 interpretive display panels for use at public meetings and in the Porton Down ConservationCentre, help people, both within the military and the local community, to understand the importance of the Natura 2000Network and the role of the LIFE-Nature fund.

A website for the project information was set up: www.english-nature.org.uk/salisbury/

A public conservation day was held in July 2003 to bring together the military and the public, while more targetedmeetings were held with tenant farmers.

The LIFE project’s experience also highlights some of the problems which can be encountered when communicatingwith the public. The project’s major restoration action is clearing trees and scrub to restore chalk grassland, but responsesfrom citizens in the local community surrounding the military training area have included remarks that it is wrong tryingto change natural evolution from grassland to scrub and woodland, that the trees were planted by the Army withtaxpayers’ money, that tree planting was a good thing because it improved the landscape and reduced noise, that deerand buzzard are losing habitat…Similar comments are familiar to many conservation managers – the whys and whereforesof conservation work are not understood by all, hence constant public information is vital - but military site managerscan expect them too when they undertake management actions.

Information to the public aboutmilitary conservation work kicked offin the past few years.

The annual open door days at theBeverlo military camp, with anaverage of 3,000 visitors, were usedas an opportunity to show, besidesthe military hardware, the naturevalues there. Guided excursions were


LIFE-Nature project

Salisbury Plain

LIFE-Nature project

All this work is being greatly expanded by the LIFE-Nature project, which is:> providing the funds to employ a dedicated communications and public relations officer (Johan Vanswijgenhoven);> carrying out media work to get press, radio and TV coverage of the work being done;> publishing brochures;> producing and distributing a layman’s report;> setting up and maintaining a website dedicated to conservation work on military Natura 2000 sites, with links to the

websites of the Belgian Ministry of Defence and the Flemish Environment Ministry;> organising information meetings and guided excursions for the public;> publishing two special issues each of the Environment Ministry’s magazine and the Ministry of Defence’s weekly;> creating an exhibition to tour the country, which explains conservation management in a military context;> erecting 24 information panels (two at each project subsite).

regularly organized into the nearbymilitary areas by the conservationauthorities’ Watersnip nature informationcentre in central Limburg.

The Belgian Ministry of Defence’sEnvironment Division published ‘Denatuur op de militaire domeinen’(March 2002), which summarisedwhat was being done at that point in

time and the consequences of Natura2000.

The Armed Forces’ websitewww.mil.be now features severalpages on defence and nature, whatNatura 2000 is and the role LIFE canplay.

How LIFE helps: communicating with the general public p. 39


How LIFE helps: public access andrecreationIn many states (Germany, Italy, France, Austria …) the military estate, including training areas, is not open to

the public, for security and secrecy reasons and because of the dangers inherent in live firing, unexploded

munitions etc. Others take a different approach.

In Denmark, the Ministry of Defence’senvironment strategy of 2000 saysthat the Armed Forces will allowpublic access as much as securityand conservation considerationsallow. In 2002 access of the public tothe natural assets in the areasbelonging to the Ministry of Defencewas secured by a new statutoryorder. The public is – as a general rule– allowed to access training areaswhen there are no military activities(normally during weekends and

Outside the firing and exercise times,the public has now been given accessto this terrain with its rich nature.Access is coordinated using signsand notices in the daily press. Thereare public rights of way (footpathsetc.) – some of which are alwaysopen, some of which are only openwhen the red flags are down (i.e. notduring live shelling) – but some areasare permanently closed off. TheDanish Forest and Nature Agency, incooperation with the local military

public holidays). The local militaryauthorities have to announce 14 daysin advance when training will takeplace in their sites. Strongerrestrictions on public access areplaced on certain areas, such as firingranges, but also on sensitive naturezones.

Thus on Denmark’s largest firingrange and exercise area in Oksbøl,the armed forces fire live ammunitionfrom planes, tanks, and mortars.

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authori t ies, arranges tours ofthe training area for a numberof interested organizations andthe local and county authorities.The tours give the participantsan overview of the area’s naturaland recreational facilities, providinga basis for them to make proposalsand requests for future usage.Which results in many diverseproposals – from systems of ridingtrails to driving in off-road vehicles,from holding orienteering events tosetting up nest boxes for birds.

The Dutch Ministry of Defence’spol icy is also to open mi l i tary

How LIFE helps: public access and recreation p. 41

areas to the public, whenever thiscan be squared with military use andother considerat ions, such asconservation or archaeologicalheritage. Thus firing ranges are outof bounds. Visitor use is generallymoderate, but there are certainproblems. Consequent ly, theMinistry intends to prohibit trailbiking and to lay out walkways andattractive routes in order to channelvisitors. There will also be moreemphasis on informing visitorsthrough panels etc. – many visitorscurrently are not aware they are onMinistry of Defence land or what thearmed forces are doing to restore

and maintain the landscape theyhave come to enjoy.

Public access is usually not allowedto military areas in Portugal butthere are exceptions near thecoast. These estates are open to thepublic on weekends and holidays.The mil i tary authorit ies put upnotice boards to prevent forestfires and other damages and somehave set up waste managementsystems to avoid littering.

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LIFE-Nature project

The Belgian situation is morecomplex. Although in principlemilitary areas are not open to thepublic, the military authorities have forlong pragmatically allowed recreationif it was compatible with military use.This was done through concessionsto third parties (aviation clubs,hunters and anglers, youth camps,gun clubs and clay pigeon shootingclubs in particular). The outstandingnature and landscape value of themilitary sites within a densely-populated country - particularlyFlanders has few open spacesoutside the military domains - makesthem very desirable to the burgeoninghordes of leisure-seekers in the post-industrial society, generating a newecological threat. This has recentlyled to rapidly increasing pressurefrom leisure-seekers on these militaryareas, including new groups like4WD, trial bike, mountain bike, horseriding and hiking enthusiasts.Excessive use is a real threat asconcessions multiply. Worse, all toomany do not even bother to askpermission and just go in on their ownbat.

Hitherto, the armed forces onlycarried out sporadic actions againstrecreation which they had notexpressly permitted – it was notconsidered a priority and the militarysimply did not have the resources.Nor did they have the formal legalpowers to prosecute breaches ofenvironment and conservation law.

The 1999 protocol between theministries responsible for defenceand the environment, hencestipulated that wardening was animportant objective. To set it uphowever, would be a costly exercise.Hence it was included in theapplication for a LIFE-Nature projectcovering the Flemish military Natura2000 sites, approved by theCommission in Sept. 2003.

This LIFE project will fund the initial effort to set up a functioning surveillancesystem and test it during its first years. The management plans and the databases it will produce will also serve to zone recreation in function of the carryingcapacity of habitats and military requirements. The LIFE project’scommunications team will try to ‘sell’ the outcome to stakeholders and thegeneral public. It will thus devote considerable attention to communicatingwith leisure stakeholder groups (which include conservation NGOs organizingexcursions!), e.g. by setting up platforms with them to debate the issues, aswell as the public at large (via information panels on site, a travelling exhibition,a dedicated website).

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The UK Ministry of Defence’s overallpolicy towards public access isunderpinned by “a presumption infavour of safe public enjoyment of itsestate wherever compatible withoperational and military training uses,public safety, security, conservationand the interest of its tenants.” Inpractice, this means that designatedfootpaths, bridleways and trails arecurrently accessible to the public.

The LIFE-Nature project is further managing and improving public access by signage (such as six information boardson chalk grassland habitat erected at key points on the Plain, and 18 interpretive display panels) and written material (a‘conservation briefing pack’ for all users of the military training area and the local community).

These help visitors to understand the importance of the Natura 2000 network, the conservation requirements for theNatura 2000 species and habitats found on the Salisbury Plain, and the role of the LIFE-Nature fund.

How LIFE helps: public access and recreation p. 43

The Porton Down military researchand testing area is not open to thepublic, for obvious reasons, but largeparts of the Salisbury Plain ArmyTraining Area are. There are publicrights of way (footpaths etc.), someof which are always open, some ofwhich are only open when the redflags are down (i.e. not during liveshelling). Other areas are permanentlyclosed off.

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How LIFE helps: dissemination andexchange of best practiceLIFE can certainly help here; in fact it is one of the instrument’s prime purposes.

One aspect shared by all LIFEprojects is producing documentationon best practice and lessons learned,for dissemination and ‘technologytransfer’.

Another aspect is bringing conservationmanagers, stakeholders, scientists...together to exchange experience,questions and ideas. Because thereare LIFE projects across Europe, LIFEcan, and does, play a unique role inbringing together people from manycountries around a commonconservation theme. This is usuallydone through workshops or seminarsorganized by a LIFE-Nature projectwhich invites colleagues fromother LIFE projects dealing with theissue in question, plus relevantstakeholders, authorities, etc.

These aspects can just as easily betransposed to a military context, andhere the LIFE-Nature projectSalisbury Plain provides an excellenttemplate.

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How LIFE helps: dissemination and exchange of best practice p. 45

Salisbury Plain

LIFE-Nature project

Prior to LIFE, the Salisbury Plainmilitary training area was alreadyattracting attention from acrossEurope because of its partnership-building between military interestsand conservation. Thus it was one ofthe excursions offered to thedelegates to the 1998 BathConference ‘Natura 2000 and People’(jointly sponsored by UK Presidencyand European Commission).

At the technical level, the LIFE-Nature project Salisbury Plain is organizing an international seminar for chalk grasslandmanagers and practitioners to demonstrate, disseminate and share best practice (foreseen August 2005). It is producinga best practice guide to spread information about the actions undertaken by the project to chalk grassland owners andmanagers throughout the EU (scheduled for March 2005). Contacts are being built up with other LIFE projects (e.g. inFrance, Slovenia, Belgium) dealing with similar habitats and the LIFE-Nature project has attended and given presentationsat international conservation workshops.

The project has an important story to tell at the policy level too. Since it began, mixed military/conservation delegationsfrom Estonia, the Ukraine and Lithuania came to the Salisbury Plain to get first-hand impressions of the military areamanagement. Contacts have been laid with the Belgian armed forces, and the Salisbury Plain LIFE-Nature projectprovided useful inspiration and input to the application for LIFE-Nature funding for a project on Flemish military sitessubmitted in 2002. The project was visited by Caroline Jackson MEP, the President of the European ParliamentEnvironment Committee.

To network military and conservation at international level, an exchange-of-experience and disseminationseminar was held in July 2004 together with Eurosite. Eurosite, which has a long track record of twinning naturereserves, was involved through its work on the ‘Natura 2000 Network Initiative’ for DG Environment. This Initiative,based on the June 2002 El Teide Declaration by the EU Council of Environment Ministers, seeks to define examples ofgood Natura 2000 practice, not just in terms of conservation techniques, but also in terms of partnership building, localawareness etc.

The seminar brought together representatives of the armed forces and ministries of defence, plus conservation managersresponsible for military areas, from the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Ireland, Latvia, Hungary, Ukraine,Italy and Portugal, as well as an observer from the USA. During two days (July 14 & 15), the participants discussedNatura 2000, LIFE-Nature, integration of conservation and military use and techniques to achieve this. Workshopsdelved into the challenges for the future. There were several excursions in the field to see first-hand how military useand conservation were integrated on the Salisbury Plain.

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The Salisbury Plain LIFE-Nature project seminar came to a series ofconclusions and recommendations, which the beneficiary has circulated. Anabridged version is given here:

> A conservation strategy for the Ministries of Defence in all Member Statesis required to ensure compliance with and contribution to the favourablecondition of Natura 2000 sites. Some countries are only at the start of thisprocess of successfully combining military training with nature conservationand Natura 2000 sites. Good and direct access to ecological advice andexpertise is essential. Greatest success has been achieved where this hasbeen developed in-house and/or where professional ecologists are directlyemployed by Ministries of Defence. Help, support and advice is particularlyneeded by some old and new Member States.

> It is essential to have the highest level agreement at the ministerial anddepartmental level between the Ministries of Defence and Environment.

> Partners should have objectives which they all share, and understand eachothers’ constraints and opportunities. They should deal with each otherwith the right attitude, with respect and understanding for each others’positions, in a spirit of cooperation. There should be an equality of decision-making. Partners should not impose ideas, but explore ways of achieving objectives together. Needed is a preparednessto work through and resolve conflicts and to accept and know what the limits of compromise are. All parties shouldbe prepared to compromise. Successful partnerships respect and hold a wide range of views. Patience andunderstanding will build strong relationships. Partnerships bring a shared accountability, responsibility and mutualrespect.

> Two different areas of important issues can be distinguished: 1) awareness raising 2) conservation management inpractice. A common solution is the adoption of integrated planning systems. Planning and managing military trainingactivities should be informed by knowledge of the distribution of habitats and species. This requires informationgathering, of biological data and of training requirements and activities. Modern IT technologies such as GIS-basedmapping tools are very effectively used to this end in some countries.

> Understand the ecological carrying capacity of the land. There are good examples of weighting factors (e.g. theeffect on the land of different types of vehicles) applied to military training activities.

> Conservationists need to be very clear in explaining reasons and rationale behind objectives, while accepting that incertain cases constraints will exist that do not allow the realization of all ‘ideal’ objectives. They should appreciatethat in fact some military training has a direct positive impact on maintaining habitat features and species.

> Develop practical solutions, not theoretical models which would never be realized; also allow scope for experimentationand risk-taking. Risks may need to be taken to demonstrate that things are possible – one should not be afraid offailing in the first instance.

> Military sites can accommodate large-scale management (not ‘conservation gardening’!) involving ambitious objectivesand targets. These sites are sufficiently large and can cater for relatively large dynamic changes in management ofhabitats. Recreational access could be zoned and managed, allowing access but directing recreational pressurewhere the site manager wants it to go.

> There is a need to establish debate forums combining military and conservation personnel, and involving a widernetwork of military personnel.

> Participation in meetings such as the Salisbury workshop has to have the consent and agreement of national policymakers (departments and ministers). Positive and constructive outcomes of such workshops are a good way ofinfluencing policy makers.

> In states like Belgium and Denmark, a high proportion of the country’s total resource in certain semi-natural Annex Ihabitats (e.g. heaths) is under military management, so that the military authorities have a particular responsibility forsafeguarding these Natura 2000 values. Whereas for some semi-natural habitats it is possible to work together withfarmers, such economic use is not so obvious for some other habitats so that their maintenance in a favourableconservation status requires constant input of funds by the military site managers.

FOOTNOTE: Full text can be obtained from [email protected]

There is no question that the LIFE Salisbury Plain seminar was favourably received by its participants: one of its officialconclusions reads ‘The fact that representatives from 12 countries (military and civilian) were represented at the workshopdemonstrates that there is a need to, and an interest in, sharing best practice… A variety of ways to maintain contact andshare best practice was proposed.’

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LIFE-Nature project

Two large international seminars(planned for 2005 and 2008), towhich other LIFE-Nature projects willbe invited, are part of the projectand will be occasions to examineprogress and draw conclusions/recommendations.

The first seminar is now set for Sept.19-23 2005 and will try to build onthe Salisbury Plain seminar, carryingits dynamic forward. The topic of theseminar is ‘Nature in Defence –Sustainable Nature Management onMilitary Areas in the Natura 2000Network’. It specifically targetspersonnel directly involved in naturemanagement on military areas. Thestate of progress within four mainthemes (ecology, partnership, publicsupport, sustainable development)will be assessed and local solutionsfor addressing military and natureconservation needs debated.

FOOTNOTE: for more information and attendance,contact: [email protected]

How LIFE helps: dissemination and exchange of best practice p. 47

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Some ministries of defence andarmed forces have been coming togrips with integrating natureconservation in their work longbefore Natura 2000 came on to thehorizon, others have been joltedinto accelerated action by Natura2000, and others again have still tostart the process.

The two LIFE-Nature projects,‘Salisbury Plain’ and ‘Flemish MilitarySites’, are flagships for thepartnership between military sitesand conservation under the Natura2000 banner.

LIFE-Nature can co-finance the taskof preparing management plansfor Natura 2000 sites in the militaryestate. Most of the activities takingplace in military areas and someof the conservation problemsencountered there are quite differentfrom the classic forms of land use andthe technical problems conservationmanagers encounter on civilian sites.So new technical solutions have tobe found, which makes managementplanning for military sites innovative.LIFE-Nature projects such as the onefor the Flemish military sites, whichelaborates and tests managementplans for a range of military sites andnatural habitats in one comprehensiveeffort, have great demonstrationpotential for armed forces acrossEurope.

LIFE-Nature can provide the criticalfunding mass to allow a backlog ofinappropriate management or noconservation management at all, tobe cleared away in a military site,and correct recurring management tobe kicked off. In this sense LIFEprojects in a military Natura 2000 siteare of the same variety as their“civilian” counterparts where LIFEalso funds investment in one-offactivities to get a site back to afavourable conservation statusrealizing its full potential.

LIFE can test and launch conservation-oriented recurring management of

semi-natural habitats in military areas,but its long-term continuation canbe a problem if there is no interestfrom farmers or foresters. For somesemi-natural Annex I habitats, suchas the calcareous grasslands on theSalisbury Plain, it is possible to worktogether with farmers. Where this isnot so obvious (heaths and similarhabitats), recurring managementmight require constant input of fundsby the military site managers, aconsiderable burden on the armedforces – “must we have to budgetfor that as well when costing militaryexercises?”, it was said during theJuly 2004 Salisbury workshop.

In some countries recreation canbe a third factor – it can exertconsiderable social pressure to openup military sites. This can threatenthe nature values of the sites. Zoningand careful planning of entries androutes (to direct people away fromsensitive areas) – guiding but notrestricting – can help solve thisdilemma, and LIFE can fund thepersonnel and infrastructure neededto bring this about.

Conclusions

Increasing awareness is vital,starting with the troops andmoving up through the hierarchy,but also the public at large –military site managers have beencriticised by the public for cuttingtrees, for instance. The communityoutside the military areas must not beneglected – it must see “its” militaryrange as valuable (even if access islimited) – if this is not the case, thefuture of the range is not assuredlong-term (cases exist where localopposition forced the politicalauthorities to close ranges). Thismeans that military sites must reachout to their neighbours. LIFE cansupport activities covering all levelsof information and awareness-raising.

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SECTION THREECO-OPERATION BETWEEN

LIFE PROJECTS ANDTHE MILITARY

Multi-site projectsMany LIFE projects cover more than onesite. Multi-site projects often target aparticular habitat type or species at nationalor regional level, implementing actions in aseries of Natura 2000 areas where thehabitat or species occurs.In several such projects, the Natura 2000sites included military areas. Two differentroutes were taken:

> Active military participation: the militaryauthorities became partners in theproject, responsible for carrying outconservation actions on their own land.

> Passive military participation: themilitary authorities left the conservationwork to the specialists, but gavepermission for the NGO or agencyrunning the LIFE-Nature project to enterthe military area and do what wasneeded.


Active military participationin the projectLIFE-Nature project

Restoring boreal forests and mires in south and west Finland(LIFE03/NAT/FIN/000034)

Only a small part of the borealforests in the southern half of Finlandare in truly ’natural’ or favourablecondition. This is because over timethe forests have succumbed to arange of pressures from commercialforestry. As a result, they have notonly shrunk in terms of their surfacearea but their structure and functionhas also been dramatically altered. Anatural forest will have trees ofdifferent ages, a lot of decaying woodon the ground, and the occasionalopenings in the forest canopy as aresult of storms. This creates idealmicro-habitats for a wide number ofspecies. Commercially used forestson the other hand are uniform, havevery l ittle dead wood or forestclearings and are consequentlyrelatively uninhabitable for mostspecies.

The LIFE-Nature project targets 33Natura 2000 forest sites in all. At eachone of them it is improving foreststructure by creating small openings

Under the LIFE-Nature project asapproved by the Commission, in theRepovesi buffer zone 180 ha of smallopenings are being cleared,controlled burning done over 16 haand decayed wood increased over 50ha. The beneficiary, Metsähallitus, istraining the people in the KarjalaBrigade doing their military service,on the ecological reasons for therestoration and its aims. The KarjalaBrigade carries out the work, butMetsähallitus is supervising it.Interesting is that the Finnish armyuses the buffer zone for its guerrillawarfare training and the LIFErestoration measures are nowincluded in this training. The KarjalaBrigade will fell trees, blow up treeswith explosive to increase decayedtimber and damage trees with a“forest tractor” (to slowly kill the treein order to have a different kind ofdecayed wood). All these measuresaim at making these currently non-qualifying Annex I forests priorityboreal forests in the long run – maybewithin 50-100 years.

in the canopy, increasing the amountof dead and decaying wood andcarrying out controlled burnings.Almost 5,000 ha of boreal forestswill have its conservation statusimproved; 350 ha of bog woodlandswill be improved by stoppingdrainage.

One of the sites is the 4,080 ha Natura2000 area Repovesi, the eastern halfof which is a forested state-ownedarea used as buffer zone around amilitary training area and firing range.Because of the danger from shellsand ammunition, visitors can notenter this area; even the national parkpersonnel (Repovesi was designatednational park in 2003) must askpermission from the Finnish ArmedForces to enter the area. The forestsin the military area buffer zone did notqualify for the boreal forest Annex Ihabitat type when the LIFE projectapplication was being drafted. Theywere nearer to economically usedforests lacking decayed wood withtoo monotonous a structure, but theyhad the potential to develop towardsboreal forests if restoration work wasundertaken.

Metsähallitus, the state agencyresponsible for forests and parks inFinland and project beneficiary, sawthat the Armed Forces would be aninteresting partner in this area, soit contacted the Armed Forcesduring the preparation of the LIFEapplication. The Army’s KarjalaBrigade agreed to become an officialpartner in the LIFE-Nature project,responsible for the conservationactions on the buffer zone land, witha right to receive LIFE co-financingfor its project costs.

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Active military participation in the project p. 51

LIFE-Nature project

Border Mires (LIFE98/NAT/UK/5432)

The Border Mires LIFE project was ledby a partnership of NorthumberlandWildlife Trust (beneficiary), EnglishNature and Forest Enterprise. Theproject sites in northern England area series of active blanket mires withinthe Border Mires: Kielder-ButterburnpSCI. Large-scale afforestation tocreate Kielder Forest between 1945and 1960 resulted in many of thesemires being partially drained andplanted with trees. Since 1986 fivebodies, the core of the future LIFEproject, had worked together topromote the conservation of themires. At the start of the LIFE project

they were joined by the Royal AirForce at Spadeadam.

The Royal Air Force became involvedbecause one of the fifteen sub-sitesidentified for action by the projectapplication, RAF Spadeadam, was amilitary testing site. Military staff notonly carried out mire restoration workhere, but also hosted the beneficiary’smid-project seminar. Moreover, in acooperative gesture, Belgian militarystaff on training exercise at nearbyOtterburn Army Camp helped transferby helicopter plastic piling needed forthe dams to raise water levels in the

mire. RAF Spadeadam won first prizein The UK Ministry of Defence’sannual Sanctuary Award for thiseffort; this prize was presented by theUnder Secretary of State for Defence.

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Restoration of Scottish raised bogs(LIFE00/NAT/UK/7078)

Since the start of the 19th centurythe extent of active lowland raisedbog in the UK was reduced from95,000ha to 8,100ha, a decline of85%. Two thirds of the remaining areais found in Scotland. A multi-site LIFEproject to improve the conservationstatus of these bogs was launched,coordinated by the Scottish RaisedBog Partnership and administeredby Scottish Wildlife Trust. Elevensites were targeted for restorationactions, including the 32 haBankhead Moss pSCI which lies inthe centre of a Ministry of Defencemunitions site.

The LIFE project action at this subsitewas to improve grazing managementby installing 390 metres of fencing.The Ministry of Defence took on thetask of finding and supervisingfencing contractors and ensuring the

job was done. This it did successfully.Working on military land, with riskfactors like unexploded munitions,implied additional safety precautionscompared to a normal site, so thatthe unit cost for fencing at BankheadMoss was significantly more thanat the ‘civilian’ subsites, and higherthan originally anticipated in theLIFE application. The Ministry ofDefence would only allow either theirown contractors to be used orcivilian contractors with the extra costof supervision. This is a goodexample of how conditions andcontext for conservation work can bequite different on a military sitecompared to a classic nature reserve.It also shows that in planning for thecosts of Natura 2000 actions onrestricted areas such as military sitesor transport infrastructure, additionalcosts must be considered.

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LIFE-Nature project

Sefton coast(LIFE95NAT/UK/000818)

The Sefton coast, Merseyside,northwest England, boasts one of thelargest sand dune systems in the UK(2000ha), but its integrity was atrisk through fragmented ownership,recreation pressures and thelack of coordinated conservationmanagement. A management schemewas established in 1978 and, throughthis mechanism, partners securedfunding from the LIFE-Natureprogramme for a project to developa conservation strategy for the SeftonCoast pSCI. The LIFE project ranfrom 1995-99 and involved three mainpartners, Sefton Council ( the localauthority and beneficiary), thestatutory conservation authorityEnglish Nature and the NGO NationalTrust.

The overall aim of the project, whichoperated along a 17km length ofdunes, was to develop a strategicplan to manage the whole of the pSCIby consolidating managementplanning, improving conditions forkey species and carrying out landpurchase and management actions toprotect duneland habitats whilst alsoraising awareness and supportamongst visitors and local people(e.g. through educational andinformational nature trails). To do this,a whole-system approach was

adopted and contacts weredeveloped with other land-owninginterests such as golf courses andmilitary sites.

Vital to the success of the project wasindeed the support it gained from keylandowners such as the Ministry ofDefence, the Reserve Forces andCadets Association and golf courses.Together this broader network ofpartners, supported by specialists,produced a ‘Conservation Strategyfor the Sefton Coast candidate SAC’,a basis for future management of theNatura 2000 area. At the end of theproject the responsibility for thestrategy has been taken on by theSefton Coast Partnership, with closelinks to local Biodiversity Action Plansand Forest Plans.

One of the project sites was the 208ha Altcar Rifle Range estate (photoabove), an area of beaches, dunes,fields and small woods. The site,owned and managed by the ReserveForces and Cadets Association (partof the Territorial Army), containspriority dune habitats and rarespecies such as the natterjack toadBufo calamita and the sand lizardLacerta agilis. Work on a currentmanagement plan was completedand a new plan prepared setting out

tasks for the next five years. Practicalactions included revised mowingregimes to maintain orchid-richgrasslands, the management of aseries of shallow pools for Bufocalamita, the mowing of dune slackvegetation and the creation of areasof new wet slack. At the end of theproject the areas covered by theactions were added to the SeftonCoast pSCI. All the work at Altcarwas carried out by the ReserveForces and Cadets Association,supported by its ConservationAdvisory Group (such groups exist onmost UK military sites) and the LIFEproject team. The Reserve Forces andCadets Association were awardedsecond place in the annual Ministryof Defence Sanctuary Award (secondonly to another LIFE project atSpadeadam, Border Mires, seeabove) for the completion of theconservation management work.

The LIFE-Nature project recognisedthe value of working with private andmilitary landowners in developing aNatura 2000 management plan. Atan international conference heldwithin the framework of the project in1999, there was a presentation fromthe Ministry of Defence ConservationOfficer and the work at Altcar wasincluded in field visits.

Active military participation in the project p. 53

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Passive military participationin the project

LIFE-Nature project

Flora Menorca(LIFE00/NAT/E/007355)

These are multi-site LIFE projects where some subsites are military estate and the military authorities allow the

project beneficiary to do restoration work on their land, collaborating with it in planning and supervising the work.

This multi-site project targets theconservation of threatened flora onthe island of Menorca (Balearics),targeting 8 Annex II species, of which4 are priority under the HabitatsDirective. Main threat to these coastalplants is an exotic plant (Carpobrotusedilis) which escaped from gardenson Menorca, and trampling /vehicleuse by tourists.

The eradication of Carpobrotus is themain measure of the project. As thepSCI hosting the threatened Annex IIplants are largely privately-owned,contacts with and permission fromthe owners is vitally important.

Three subsites were military land.When approached by the LIFE projectbeneficiary, the Spanish DefenceAuthorities were one of the first to givepermission to enter their land. Privateowners were generally more hesitant.So Carpobrotus removal – done bycutting and uprooting the plantsmanually (see photos left) – on thesemilitary properties (s’Enclusa, Molade Mao and San Felip) has thusalready been completed, whilenegotiations with private owners arestill continuing – a feather in themilitary’s cap.

The Coastguard is also cooperatingwith the project and has dedicated awork brigade to help removeCarpobrotus from public lands.

Both Defence Authorities andCoastguard are represented in theproject’s steering committee.

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Passive military participation in the project p. 55

LIFE-Nature project

Conservation of Andalusian flora(LIFE94/E/001203)

Under this multi-site LIFE-Natureproject to conserve endangered andendemic flora, actions were carriedout on Alboran Island, a strategicmilitary territory located betweenSpain and Morocco. The purpose wasto reintroduce the priority Annex IIspecies Diplotaxis siettiana, endemicto the island. During a first survey ofthe island under the LIFE project, itwas confirmed that the species wasextinct in the wild. FortunatelyDiplotaxis was growing in theBotanical Garden in Cordoba, fromwhich seeds were brought and grownin plots and then reintroduced duringthe LIFE project.

The military personnel stationed onthe island helped by regularlywatering the reintroduced plants andkeeping an eye on their growth.

After the end of the LIFE project, thebeneficiary, the Regional Governmentof Andalusia, and the Ministry ofDefence continued to work together.They collaborate in monitoringthe success of the conservationmeasures for Diplotaxis - there iscurrently a population of more than400 individuals on Alboran Island –and carrying out surveys of anotherendangered species, the seagullLarus audouini.

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LIFE-Nature project

Atlantische Heide(LIFE99NAT/B/6298)

This project by a Belgian conservationNGO, Natuurpunt (which is active inFlanders), targeted remnants of aheathland type intermediate betweenAtlantic and Continental heathlands,largely restricted to west Belgium.These remnants were fragmented andin poor shape.

One of the subsites targeted by theproject was Gulke Putten. It containsradio transmission towers andbulidings (photo above) which oncebelonged to the telephone companyBelgacom but were transferred to themilitary authorities.

As in the other project sites, amanagement plan was drawn upunder LIFE and it covers the 68ha area owned by the militaryauthorities plus 30 ha of the adjoiningPredikherenbossen, bought byNatuurpunt during this LIFE project.A good relationship with the militaryauthorities in Gulke Putten wasachieved quite early on in the projectand allowed the plan to be draftedquite smoothly. The military have noobjections that the NGO managesthis radio-communication site for theconservation of wet heathlands andrelated habitats, and agreed to thisin writing (the contract withNatuurpunt is an integral part of themanagement plan Gulke Putten).

With the military’s blessing, the NGOused LIFE funding to restore 12 haof degraded heathland inside themilitary terrain (photo top left) andkilometres of fencing were installedto start recurring management bygrazing with Galloway cattle.

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Passive military participation in the project p. 57

LIFE-Nature project

Marais calcaires en Lorraine(LIFE99/NAT/B/006285)

This is another NGO multi-siteproject, but with RNOB, a conservationNGO active in southern (French-speaking) Belgium, as beneficiary.The project restored and didmanagement planning for a series ofcalcareous mires in southeastBelgium.

One of the largest mires, Marais deLandsbruch (photo right), lay withinthe military training area of Laglandnear Arlon. Thanks to the personalnaturalist interest of its commander,Lagland was managed through the1990s with an eye to conserving andenhancing its rich nature values(alkaline fens). Maps were producedshowing the troops which areas toavoid during exercises.

RNOB was awarded a managementcontract for the Marais de Landbruch,core of the Lagland site. Becausesuccession was threatening itsstatus, the Lagland military authoritysought and obtained assistance fromRNOB and the Wallonian environmentauthorities to begin restoration works,and so the Landsbruch mire becameone of the ‘Marais calcaires enLorraine’ LIFE-Nature project sites.

15 ha in the Landsbruch were clearedof trees by contractors hired byRNOB and cofinanced by LIFE,permitting the natural restoration ofthe fen vegetation and the hydrologyof the site (photos below, right).

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LIFE-Nature project

Protection of the Posidonia beds in the Balearic Islands(LIFE00/NAT/E/7303)

Posidonia oceanica is a marine plant,occurring only in the Mediterranean,which forms dense expanses of‘seagrass’ on the bottom of thesea, harbouring a rich ecosystem.Unfortunately it has declineddramatically in recent decades. Thereare still good Posidonia beds aroundthe Balearic Islands, and this LIFEproject set out to preserve them. Itcovers 17 offshore sites and the mainmeasures are management planning,monitoring of trends, actions to dealwith the damage caused byanchoring yachts (5,000 yachts onaverage frequent the islands everysummer) and by fishing, surveillanceand information work.

One of the 17 sites is CabreraIsland, which is owned by theSpanish Armed Forces but lies withina national park which extends over amarine reserve offshore. So de factoit is managed by the national parksadministration.

At Cabrera, the project is monitoringthe Posidonia beds by laying outunderwater plots and carrying outspecial actions for the benefit of theendangered seabird Larus audouiniiwhich is associated with the localPosidonia ecosystem. The nationalpark administration controls mooringby yachts (no-go areas for anchoragecoupled to permitted mooring points).

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Military expertise helping Natura 2000 through LIFE projects p. 59

Military expertise helping Natura 2000through LIFE projectsA number of LIFE-Nature projects have received technical assistance from the Armed Forces, even though

not one of the sites was a military area. In these cases, the military provides manpower, machinery or specialist

knowledge towards solving a challenge facing the project on the ground. Not dissimilar to, though of course

on a very much lower scale, the Armed Forces pitching in when there are floods or storm damage.

LIFE-Nature project

Restoration of mire and bog ecosystems in North Savo (LIFE02NAT/FIN/8470)

This project restores boreal forestsand their associated mires in theNorth Savo region of Finland. Thetargeted forests are no longer in truly’natural’ or favourable condition,because over time they have beenaffected by a range of pressures fromcommercial forestry which havealtered their structure and function.A natural forest will have trees ofdifferent ages, a lot of decaying woodon the ground, and the occasionalopenings in the forest canopy as aresult of storms. This creates idealmicro-habitats for a wide number ofspecies. Commercially used forestson the other hand are more uniformand have very little dead wood orforest clearings.

At one of the sites covered bythe project, Rautuvaara, explosiveswould be used to blow up 180-200trees at 14 points on state-ownedland, in order to increase decayedwood. This is a technique whichhas been used before in Finland, butis nevertheless still quite innovative.

The LIFE project coordinator, seekingexpert assistance, contacted theRegional Army Corps, which advisedhim to talk to the Kainuu Brigade,based at Kajaani, not too far from theRautuvaara site. The Brigade wassent a description of the task andinformation about the project, andafter some negotiations agreed to

assist. Its sappers would undertakethe work as part of their explosivestraining – in fact, it would be anexcellent combination. Normally thesappers train with ‘artificial trees’ –timber they put up straight in theground – as there are not enoughtrees left on their training ground, soan opportunity to train in a real-lifesetting was a bonus.

The combined explosives training –nature restoration work beganquite soon after the LIFE projectcommencement and is continuingthrough its duration.

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LIFE-Nature project

Trockenrasen in Rheinland-Pfalz(LIFE02NAT/D/8461)

This project, a partnership betweenthe foundation Stiftung Natur undUmwelt Rheinland-Pfalz and theregional statutory conservationauthority, covers a series of subsitesin the German Rhineland where drygrasslands with rich populations ofrare plants and invertebrates arebeing restored by cutting overgrowthand then bringing them underappropriate recurring management.

At the Mauerchenberg-Hierenberg-Pinnert subsite (near Lissendorf),large coherent blocks of pine were cutdown in the dry grasslands on thesteep hills here. The Bundeswehr (4.Kompanie des Fernmeldebataillons281) helped do this work with its menand machines (see photos) in Feb –March 2003 – the battalion isstationed nearby at Gerolstein andhas often provided assistance to localactivities as part of its ‘goodneighbour’ policy. The clearing workwas coordinated by the LIFE-Natureproject’s staff and the district forestryservice. The soldiers’ work attractedconsiderable attention from the localpress and TV. Inhabitants of thevillage Gönnersdorf came and broughtthe troops hot drinks and cake tofortify them against the cold weather.

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LIFE-Nature project

Dijlevallei(B4-3200/98/434)

The focus of this Belgian project wasthe wet grasslands and alder woods(photo above) along the Dijle Rivernear the cities of Leuven andBrussels. It tackled the results of pastneglect and restored land lost topoplar plantations and fish ponds.

One of this project’s actions was toimprove, and simultaneously guide,visitor access to the floodplainmeadows, ponds and woodlands ofthe site. A former tramway crossedthe site on an embankment, but itsbridge across a stream had longcollapsed. If the bridge could berestored, the tramway would make anideal visitor route. The sappers of theBelgian Army (Corps de Genie, basedin Namur) offered to put up a newbridge, free of charge. For them it wasa good exercise in bridge building indifficult terrain. The bridge waserected in a few days in summer 2003(photos right and above).

Military expertise helping Natura 2000 through LIFE projects p. 61

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LIFE-Nature project

Kuusamo(LIFE96NAT/FIN/3026)

In northeast Finland, close to theRussian border, the Kuusamo districthad some of the largest remainingremnants of old-growth forest inFinland. To preserve these privately-owned forests for posterity in theirvirgin state, this LIFE project’s targetwas to compensate owners for takingthe forests out of economic use forever.

Because the local community was notunanimously in favour of endingeconomic exploitation, informationand public relations were animportant part of this project. Besidesthe local community, the generalpublic was targeted, to make it awareof the natural treasures in theKuusamo region. This could also helpunderpin another aspect, namely tosupport local community initiatives to

A conclusion that can be drawn from these examples of the military helpingconservation projects: the armed forces carry out many training exercises, andusually these have as sole purpose the training of the troops. However, in thecases mentioned above, such as in the LIFE-Nature projects Dijlevallei and NorthSavo, the military exercise has a dual purpose: training the troops, but alsoachieving a conservation goal. For the armed forces, combining an exercise witha task for the public good is not only intrinsically satisfying, it also raises theprofile of the military within the wider community. Conservation operators shouldtherefore not hesitate to contact the military when they face tasks which thearmed forces potentially have the capacity to deal with.

launch sustainable nature-basedtourism as an alternative to forestry.One of the communication tools usedby the project was a video film aboutthe virgin forests called ‘Thethousand-year tale of the taiga forest’.The problem was, filming the videowould be no easy task. The forestsspread over some 14,000 hectares ofwild and roadless terrain, cut by miresand lakes. The only way to get film

material that would do justice to thesplendour of the forests was from theair – but chartering aircraft couldeasily run to 2,000 € per hour.

Here the Finnish Border DefenceForce stepped in. It had a detachmentresponsible for the border with Russiaalong the eastern side of Kuusamo,and this detachment offered its patrolhelicopter to carry the film crew overthe forests. Free of charge, as a goodneighbour gesture to help the LIFEproject. The filming was done in thesummer of 1999 and an excellentvideo was produced.

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SECTION FOURLIFE ON FORMERMILITARY SITES



LIFE on former military sitesBesides active military sites, there are former military sites which kept or acquired great natural value thanks to

their military status, but began losing this value after their decommitment from military use.

Where the ecological value came fromregular disturbance by militaryactivities which kept creating andre-creating pioneer habitats,decommitment meant that thesehabitats and the species whichdepend on them began disappearing.Where the ecological value stemmedfrom a lack of disturbance becausethe site was closed to the public,decommitment meant an influxof visitors, or possibly even plansto commercially exploit the site.Examples of decommitment aredescribed below as they illustrate acommon problem for conservation.

The events of 1989 and followingyears brought a completely newstrategic environment and thishas been reflected through majorchanges to military infrastructure inEurope. Many military bases andtraining areas were closed, especiallyin central and eastern Europe.

The process is not yet ended – armedforces are sti l l restructuringthemselves to become lighter andmore mobile, in response to currentsecurity issues.

In 1985 the Netherlands stil lhad 50,000 ha of military estate, butthe end of the Cold War broughta shift towards a smaller andmore professional armed force.The end of compulsory nationalservice alone meant less room wasneeded for training. By 2000 theestate had been reduced to 30,000ha, and was set to shed another 5,000ha. The Ministry of Defence NationalMilitary Training Grounds StructurePlan (a spatial planning document forthe military areas issued in 2001)examines the consequences of thereduced need for training areas. Thefifth Town and Country PlanningPolicy Document, covering the periodup to 2020, was elaborated in 2002

by the various ministries concerned.It emphasizes the potential for naturalvalues and for housing/industry parksin the military areas to bedecommissioned.

The French armed forces agreed totransfer coastal sites which theydecommissioned to the Conservatoirede l’espace littoral et des rivageslacustres, an agency responsible formanaging coastal land as publicheritage. In December 1994 19 sitescovering 250 ha were transferred.For inland decommissioned sites,the Ministry of Defence examinesthe possibility of transferring themto another public body on a case-by-case basis with the Ministry forLand Use Planning. For instance, 220

ha was transferred to the parksauthority of the Ile de France region.Sites which are not transferred aresold on the real estate market.

LIFE-Nature projects have alreadyshown how decommissioned militarysites can be given a new lease of lifeas nature conservation areas. Howimportant this work is, is shown bythe following two cases where themilitary withdrew from sites, andbecause of that, their conservationvalue plummeted. LIFE funding wasneeded for ‘ambulance projects’ toestablish a new system of appropriatemanagement which recreated thedisturbance-free refuges for rare andvulnerable species hitherto providedby the military site users.

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Conservation of Larus audouini(LIFE03/NAT/E/000061)

Isla Grosa is an island off theSpanish coast near Murcia whichhosts a colony of 1,100 pairs of theendangered seabird Audouin’s gull(Larus audouini). The existence of thisexceptionally large colony can beattributed to the fact that humanactivities in the island were restricteduntil January 2000 to military use. Theisland was occupied by the SpanishNavy and a Military Diving Centrewas operating there. Access wasrestricted to the military personnel, orscientists with a valid permit from theMinistry.

As soon as the military stoppedusing the diving centre in 2000, decayand vandal destruction of theinfrastructures began, as well asil legal visits to the island anddamages to the fauna (mainly to thenesting birds).

Faced with this dire threat to apopulation of European significanceof a rare bird species, considered apriority for EU attention under Natura2000, emergency action had to betaken. A protocol was signed by theMinistry of Defence and the Presidentof the Regional Government of Murciaon 2/05/01 in which they agreed that:> Isla Grosa still belongs to the

Ministry of Defence.> The island could be used for

studies on environment and nature.To this end, the infrastructures couldbe used and rehabilitated by theregional government with priorauthorization of the Ministry ofDefence.

> The surveillance and the securityof the island will be ensured by theregional government.

To carry out this protocol, funds wereneeded, and here LIFE came to therescue. The LIFE-Nature projectbegan in January 2004. It will restorethe abandoned military installationon the island as a surveillance andresearch centre for Larus audouini.Other actions will also be undertaken

on the island like an initial survey ofthe ecological situation, monitoring,management planning, predatorcontrol, clearing vegetation frombreeding areas, artificial nests, etc.

The current situation is that anarchitect has prepared a blueprintwhich the Ministry of Defence is nowchecking for approval. Once this isdone, the works can begin (scheduledto be done during early 2005).

LIFE on former military sites p. 65

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LIFE-Nature project

Orford Ness(LIFE94NAT/UK/000850) – (LIFE97NAT/UK/4245)

Orford Ness National Nature Reserveis the largest vegetated shingle spitin Europe. The 16 km long spit, onthe Suffolk coast, includes, on itslandward side, salt marshes, lagoonsand grassland. It is now classified asa pSCI for its coastal lagoons, driftlines and shingle and is part of thelarger Alde-Ore Estuary SPA which isespecially important for the avocet,Recurvirostra avosetta.

Orford Ness was acquired by the UKMinistry of Defence in 1913 and wasa secret military test site until themid-1980s (bomb ballistics, firingtrials). It was a good example of the

‘disturbance on military sites’paradox mentioned in Section I:despite the military presence andviolent and noisy tests, bird numbershad flourished. 37 bird species werebreeding or wintering here in the1980s.

Problems soon arose after thewithdrawal of the military presence inthe second half of the 1980s.Unlawful access and activities spreadunchecked. This in turn resulted in adecline of the resident birds.

Orford Ness was purchased by theNational Trust in 1994 to save it.Besides preserving many of thebuildings as part of military history,the new owner also wanted to bringaccess and use of the site undercontrol. This would protect both thebirds and the buildings. Furthermore,the former military use had left alegacy of damage to the habitatsfound on the site, and this needed tobe repaired.

For the nature conservation aspects,the National Trust turned to LIFE-Nature. Through two projects theNational Trust was able to improvegrassland habitats through grazing,protect the shingle flora, improvewater control on the marshes andcontrol damaging activities such asillegal shooting. Much of the work ofthe first project was aimed atenhancing the populations of wadersand ground-nesting birds within the

During the 1990s, when the Natura2000 network was still being built up,military areas which could becomepSCI and/or SPA because of theirgreat natural values, were beingdecommissioned. There were oftenother candidates to take over and usethese military sites (recreation,housing, afforestation…..). Here LIFEplayed a significant role by providingthe funds to secure such areas andbegin conservation management, sothat they could be integrated into theNatura 2000 network.

SPA. The second LIFE projectcompleted the restoration work byopening up two lagoons for waders,creating reedbeds (to benefit themarsh harrier Circus aeruginosus),investigating factors holding backsuccessful reproduction of ground-nesting birds and rare shingle flora,finalising a long-term managementplan and promoting sustainablenature tourism.

Orford Ness is now open to visitorsand nature conservation is presentedalongside military history. The onlyaccess to the site is by ferry and thishelps to control visitor pressure.

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LIFE-Nature project

Grindenschwarzwald(LIFE01NAT/D/7039)


This project is restoring mountainheaths and mires on the high plateauxand peaks of the northern BlackForest in Germany.

The highest peak in the project areais the Hornisgrinde. Views from it aremagnificent; on clear days Strasbourgcan even be seen. By the early 20th

century, the Hornisgrinde was apopular destination for walking toursand ski-ing and an observation towerwas built on its summit in 1910. Gliderenthusiasts discovered it, building ahangar which was used by theLuftwaffe in World War II andconfiscated by the French Air Forcein 1945. For decades it was crownedby a radar and radio post with staffbuildings (photo top left), and closedto the public. Even the observationtower was out of bounds.

This did have one advantage: theHornisgrinde peak is covered bymountain heath and mire, and the

termination of visitor access meantthat these Annex I habitats stayed ina better condition than at some othersites in the Black Forest. TheFeldberg, the highest peak in thesouthern Black Forest, has a simiIarlandscape to the Hornisgrinde, butwas open to the public throughout thesecond half of the 20th century.Hundreds of thousands of peoplevisit the Feldberg each year, and thishas caused considerable erosion anda criss-crossing of trails.

When the French Air Force left in1996-1999 the military installationswere decommissioned and handedover to the local municipalities, whonaturally wanted to exploit thetourism potential of this viewpoint.The site was, because of its Annex Ihabitats, proposed for Natura 2000.

It soon became clear that therenewed influx of visitors, after somany years of tranquill ity, was

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Ü b e r a l l e n G i p f e l nh e r r s c h t R u h?

Entdecken Sie die Spuren der ehemaligen Nutzung – aber legen Sie bitte keine neuen!

Seit der Militärzaun hierabgebaut worden ist, müssen wir noch weiter laufen !!!

Aber das Meiste liegt ja schon hinter uns. Noch zwei

Höhenlinien und wir sind am Ziel!

GipfelsturmBereits Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts zogdie Hornisgrinde Scharen von Wanderernund Skiläufern an. Sogar Segelflieger nutzten den luftigen Gipfel als Startplatz.

Betreten strengstens verboten!So hieß es nach dem II. Weltkrieg. Die französische Luftwaffe hatteden Berg besetzt – ein idealerPosten für Radar- und Funk-stationen. Doch militäri-scher ‚Weitblick’ verbottouristischen Ausblick.Unschöne Hinterlassen-schaften des Militärs sind die Teerstraße, Gräbensowie Gebäude- und Zaunrestedes ehemaligen Sperrgebiets.

Verständnis statt VerboteNach Jahrzehnten darf der Gipfel seit 1996wieder von allen betreten werden. Etwa50.000 Besucher erklimmen jährlich dieHornisgrinde, um hier Ruhe und Erholungzu finden. Kein Zaun versperrt den Zugang,nur Verständnis schützt die Natur vor Übertritten.

‘Neuer’ Turm:Als Aussichtsturm 1910 vomSchwarzwaldverein erbaut.Von 1945 – 1999 militärisch

genutzt und seit 2004 wieder für Besucher zugänglich.

Segelflughalle:Erbaut 1938 für den Segelflugsport.1942 durch die Reichsluftwaffebeschlagnahmt, danach von derfranzösischen Luftwaffe, heuteSchafstall.

Bismarckturm:Mit 1164 m ü.NN der

höchste Punkt des Nordschwarzwalds.

Bohlenweg:Vom Schwarzwald-verein im Jahr 1972errichtet. 2002 mitUnterstützung des

EU-Projekts ‘LIFE-Grindenschwarzwald’

durch den Schwarz-waldverein erneuert.

Und es lohnt sich! Denn durch dasNaturschutz-Projekt

»LIFE-Grindenschwarzwald«ist eure Weidef läche fast

doppelt so groß wie früher.

Windkraftanlagen:Drei 25 m hohe

Windräder erzeugenseit 1994 Energie für

Sasbachwalden.Sendeturm:

Im Jahre 1965 erbaut,mit 205 Meter höchstes

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Dreifürstenstein

causing damage to the mountainheath and the mire on theHornisgrinde peak. There were toomany visitors (50,000 a year) andthere was no control over where theywalked. To stop the deterioration, theLIFE-Nature project laid out a trail 2km long, part of it a boardwalk, tobring people to the observation towerand back again, through the heathsand mires which will no longer betrampled if visitors keep to the path.Panels (photo top right) along thepath inform visitors of the naturalvalues; one of the panels also tellsthe story of the military use.

Work in parallel by the municipalitiesto renovate the observation tower anddemolish the military installations todevelop nature-based tourism, is thusnicely complemented: tourists arechannelled through the LIFE trail,maintaining undisturbed areas toeither side, and simultaneously areprovided with information about natureconservation. One of the militaryhangars has even been given a newlease of life as a stable for the sheepwhich are used for the grazingmanagement of the mountain heath.

Photo ©Photo ©Photo ©Photo ©Photo © Regierungspräsidium Freiburg, Referat Naturschutz und Landschaftspflege


LIFE-Nature project

Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft and Müritz(LIFE91NAT/D/8194)

The two project subsites(Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaftand Müritz) were large areas inMecklenburg-Vorpommern, ofoutstanding natural value, whereLIFE helped establish functioningnational parks in the early 1990s.

The project was a success – theparks have been established andhave become important economicfactors in their districts, attractinghundreds of thousands of touristsa year and directly employingover 150 people. Military areasinside the sites, abandoned afterthe collapse of the GDR, wereintegrated into the new nationalparks.

In the Boddenlandschaft, besidesdemolishing and removing watch-

towers and other Iron Curtaininfrastructure, the former naval baseDarßer Ort on the Baltic was to berestored to a natural state. There wasconflict with the yachting lobby, whichwanted to use the base as a harbourfor pleasure sailing. In the end acompromise was reached in whichthe port is kept as a refuge foremergencies, but is otherwise out ofbounds to all but authorised traffic,while the installations on shore werealmost all removed and the land givenback to nature.

The Müritz national park inherited alarge expanse of land whereconstant exercising had created andkept open acres of bare sand andherbaceous vegetation, locallydubbed ‘the Sahara’. The nationalpark administration, as LIFE

beneficiary, faced a choice: preservethis pioneer habitat, or not? To keepthis expanse open would haverequired constant managementinput against natural succession,which would be technical and costly.Therefore, the choice was made tolet natural succession take its courseand study the process (i.e. an open-air laboratory/giant vegetationmonitoring plot). Such choices ariseconstantly in conservation work, notonly in former military sites: maintaindynamic open habitats or let a naturalclimax forest arise? Whereas militaryuse, at no cost to conservationbudgets, can create and maintaininteresting open habitats, when itends these habitats come underpressure unless an alternative formof land management is deployedwhich has the same effect.

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LIFE-Nature project

Hainich(LIFE95/NAT/D/000086)


The Hainich in Thuringia is one of theEU’s largest beech forests, much ofwhich was a Red Army trainingground. When the Soviets withdrewafter 1990, the Hainich’s future wasup for grabs. Various competing andmutually antagonistic ideas poppedup. The regional government’senvironment authorities wanted tomake it a national park and Natura2000 area, and applied for a LIFEproject to help them do this. Theproject did inventories, drew up amanagement plan, paid compensationsto reinstated private owners and laidthe groundwork for visitor guidanceand information (it was hoped thatthis beech national park wouldbecome a magnet for nature tourists,

bringing revenue and employment tothis depressed district).

Protection as national park and Natura2000 site eventually succeeded,but there were many problems toovercome first. Apart from theboundaries of the protected area, anissue was management – the formermilitary area was under the control ofthe Federal Government, whosefederal forestry service was managingthe woods. It was under instructionfrom the finance ministry to generaterevenue. The ensuing exploitation ofbeech timber caused conflict with theregional authorities (who wanted anature reserve with no humanintervention) and local authorities

(who did not think tourists would liketo see beeches being cut down).Low-key selective logging elsewherein the Hainich by a commonsassociation (photo below) was morein line with Natura 2000.

Part of the beech forest had beenrazed by the Red Army to make atraining area for armoured vehicles –as in the Müritz, there was a choicebetween maintaining this area asopen land or to let it grow back tobeech naturally. Because theHainich’s European significance layfirst and foremost in its largeunbroken Annex I beech foresthabitats, the choice was made for areturn of beech.

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LIFE-Nature project

Integral Coastal Conservation Initiative(LIFE96NAT/B/3032)

One of main actions of this Belgianproject to restore coastal habitatsalong the North Sea was to demolisha naval station at the estuary of theIJzer (photo right), decommissionedas part of the ‘peace dividend’ after1989, and reconvert the land to saltmarshes (photo below). This actionwas carried out successfully, but theproject had to be prolonged as thetechnical work could not start until thenaval base ownership had beentransferred from the Defence Ministryto the Environment Ministry, whichtook time (administrative procedures,but also the requirement that fundsbe transferred from one ministry’sbudget line to another).

This is an important issue: whenformer military land passes to adifferent public body, must therecipient pay for the land, if so, how

is the value determined? Thisdepends on national budgetarypolicies, but can be a major problemfor conservation. In Germany theformer GDR and Red Army areasraised this problem (plus the problemof eventual former private ownerswho had a claim) which eventually ledto an agreement between federal andregional governments that land ofhigh conservation value would betransferred to ownership of theLänder free of charge, up to a certainceiling in terms of hectares.

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LIFE-Nature project

Habitat restoration and conservation of Ardeidaeon Lago Trasimeno (LIFE02/NAT/IT/008556)

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The main objective of the projectHabitat restoration and conservationof Ardeidae on Lago Trasimeno,which takes place around the largestlake of peninsular Italy, is to restorethe ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and alder(Alnus glutinosa) woods, an Annex Ihabitat that has virtually disappearedin this area, over approximately 12hectares of the lakeshore. Part of thisrestoration area is being leased by theAir Force (it was a military airport untilrecently). This is a good example ofa decommissioned military site whichis being recovered for purposes ofnature conservation, thus saving itfrom the risk of being built up orotherwise exploited.


LIFE-Nature project

Transnational programme for the conservation of bats inwest-central Europe (LIFE95/NAT/D/000045)

A considerable proportion of the batspecies listed on Annex II and IV ofthe Habitats Directive are native to thegreat swathe of territory from theMarne to the Rhine and Meuse, nowshared between four states (France,Belgium, Luxemburg and Germany).Like all bats, they need to hibernatein dark and sheltered places,absolutely free from disturbance,with constant temperatures andhumidity. The massive changes tothe landscape of northwesternEurope caused by intensifyingagriculture and forestry and spreadingurbanisation, affected this area too.The bats lost ever more of theirnormal hibernating sites: hollow trees,natural cavities...

Yet in this particular area, militaryhistory left behind a whole set of newhibernation quarters: undergroundgalleries, fortifications and bunkersfrom the First World War (aroundVerdun) or from the lead-up to theSecond World War (the Siegfried andMaginot lines along the German-French border), from the second waritself (air-raid shelters in Rheinland-Pfalz) and even from earlier militaryhistory (the 17th century fortificationsof Luxembourg city and Montmedyin Lorraine), as well as objects inmilitary camps still in use at the endof 20th century. All these had the righttemperature, darkness and freedomfrom disturbance to become superbwintering sites for bats, who did nottake long to move in. Consequently,populations of some bat species inthis region were much healthier thanin the districts to the north or west,which did not have anything like thesesubstitute wintering quarters to standin for the natural thing, now oftenscarce.

The LIFE-Nature project set out tomake sure that these military objects(and similar artificial hibernating spotslike abandoned mines and railwaytunnels) would remain secure for the

bats. It first inventoried them and theirresident populations, then tookappropriate action to make sure thatthe bats could never be disturbed –usually by installing gates and doorsat the entrances with slits throughwhich bats could fly. Of the 143individual sites secured by the projectbetween 1995 and 1998, 46 weremilitary objects! Although many ofthese sites were no longer activelymanaged by the military, but were justgeneral public property of the stateor local authorities, there were somecases in France where the Ministryof Defence was selling them underinstructions from the Ministry ofFinance to raise revenue. Becausebuyers might turn up who wanted touse these objects for purposes notcompatible with bats, such asprojects to open discos orwarehouses or tourism attractions,the LIFE project beneficiary wasobliged to buy such objects – FortDomgermain and Fort Vacherauville(where no less than 145 Rhinolophumferrumequinum were hibernating, seephotos) in the Lorraine were bought

by the beneficiary. In other casesconventions were signed with themilitary authorities that they wouldleave the bat protection constructionsintact. Finally, in Wallonia the BelgianArmed Forces carried out extensiveworks to secure the Fort de Dave forbats, applying technical blueprintssupplied by the LIFE beneficiary, butpaying for it themselves parallel to theLIFE project.

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SUMMARY



SummaryHaving completed this tour of LIFE projects with a military dimension, the following points stand out:

So far there are 28 on-going orcompleted LIFE-Nature projectswith a military dimension.

Two projects (Salisbury Plain and theBelgian project covering all Flemishtraining areas) are large-scale projectsby and for the military. They areflagship demonstration projects fordovetailing military use of Natura2000 sites with the requirements ofthe Birds and Habitats Directives andbuilding up or deepening partnershipwith the conservation authorities.

Besides projects focusing exclusivelyon military land in which the militaryauthorities are in a leading role, thereare broad, multi-site projects in whichthe military authorities are one of thepartners. In six LIFE projects, themilitary were active partners,responsible for carrying out conservationwork on certain sites (namely theirown military domains) under theguidance of the main beneficiary (aconservation body).

In eight, the military reachedagreements with conservation agentsunder which the latter carried outpractical habitat restoration ormanagement work on sites owned bythe military (passive or reversepartnership).

In four projects, no military sites wereinvolved but the military assisted theproject by providing expertise andpractical help. Example: usingexplosives to produce dead wood forspecies dependent on it, or Armysappers building a bridge across astream for the benefit of visitors to anature reserve.

Finally, in eight projects LIFE providedthe investment funds to secure areaswhich were decommissioned frommilitary use (bases and training areasmade redundant by the end of theCold War) and to carry out the

necessary restoration (removal of oldinfrastructure, repair of damagedhabitats, measures to keep visitorsand leisure-seekers out of sensitiveareas). Without this, these areascould well have been lost to formsof development or land useincompatible with their nature value.

The military areimportant stakeholdersin Natura 2000.

The military estate covers large areasin most member states (over 100,000ha in some states) and much of thishas a high nature value. This is notsurprising: military areas have by theirnature been shielded from the sortsof development and changes to landuse (residential building, agriculturalintensification) which have had sucha negative impact on biodiversityacross so much of Europe. Thisprotection of heritage by the military,even if it was unintended, ought tobe acknowledged. Sites like OrfordNess or the Isla Grosa off the Murciacoast show how rapidly biodiversitycan decline once the de factoprotection given by the militarystatus is removed, because ofdecommissioning. In countries likeDenmark and the Netherlands, theonly sizeable examples left of theheath and shifting sands landscapeswhich were so widespread in the 19thcentury, are precisely those in themilitary training areas. A considerablepercentage of the military estates(in some countries over half) hasconsequently been included into theNatura 2000 network.

Military use can bebeneficial for naturevalues

In a general manner, by keeping outunfettered recreational use, militarysites are often refuges for species

sensitive to disturbance - even in afiring range, there are large tractswhich are rarely, if ever, used forpractice. More specifically, bombing,shell ing and armoured vehiclemanoeuvres can create/maintainpioneer habitats against naturalsuccession. Fires and vehiclemovement thus can mimic the ancientrural practices of burning heath andcreating bare ground through tracks- practices which have been abandoned,so that heath in northwest Europe iseverywhere threatened by the growthof shrubs and trees. Holes fromexploding shells or tank treads canfill with water and become idealbreeding habitat for amphibians.

In turn, this means that where suchmilitary use ends, there is a risk thatthe nature values decline.

Natura 2000 =partnership andmultifunctional land use

Summing up, the armed forces arealready important stakeholders inNatura 2000 by the very fact thatmilitary areas have been proposed forthe network, but they are alsopotential partners. Natura 2000 hasmuch to gain from a partnership withthe military owners and managers ofpSCI and SPAs.

Natura 2000 is by no means intendedto be a system of totally closedreserves and multifunctional use(including military activities) of thesites is one of the essentialcharacteristics of the network.

Integrating Natura 2000requirements andmilitary use

Like many stakeholders, the militaryhave been concerned about whatNatura 2000 would mean in practice,

especially in view of the uniquecircumstances under which themilitary has to operate (emergencytraining in crisis events, need forsecrecy, damage is unavoidablewhen using tanks or artillery). Thereis even a network, DEFNET, betweenEuropean ministries of defence tomonitor Natura 2000 and other EUenvironment policies.

The core question is: how can futureuse by the armed forces of their ownsites, particularly changes to use, beintegrated with the obligation tomaintain a favourable conservationstate under Natura 2000? How canmilitary site managers best and mostsmoothly work together with thenational and EU competent natureauthorities on complying with theNatura 2000 requirements?

The LIFE programme can helpaddress these questions andconcerns, by financing managementplanning work to reconcile, for oneor more particular sites, conservationand military use, developing amodel which can be transposed toother military areas. Partnershipprojects between the military andenvironment authorities, cofinancedby LIFE, are excellent laboratories tolearn to work together and gainmutual trust and a professionalworking relationship.

LIFE-Nature projects are alreadyfunding management planning whichis quite different from classic plans.A Belgian LIFE project, for instance,is developing an innovative andcomprehensive approach tomanagement planning, with built-inflexibility. The projects are alsofunding the establishment of trainingprogrammes for daily use ofthe plans, and general awareness-raising among the military staff.Measures to reconcile access andsustainable use for recreation withnature conservation and militaryrequirements are also beingsupported.

Because each project is targetinga clearly defined site or set ofsites, national differences in termsof context and of military policies

vis-à-vis public access, planningprocedures, etc., are naturally takeninto account. LIFE helps with eachaspect of Natura 2000implementation at sitelevel

The different tasks which togetherconstitute a complete scenario fortaking care of a Natura 2000 site canbe summarised as follows:

> management planning (includingpreliminary inventories);

> training and other measures toensure correct application of theplans;

> restoration of degraded habitats toa good conservation status;

> recurring management to keephabitats in a favourable conservationstatus (including monitoring);

> communication with stakeholdersand the public;

> controlling and guiding visitoraccess (tourism and recreation);

> dissemination of results andexchange of experience with peers.

Because the military have other tasksand objectives, military areas haveoften not been managed withbiodiversity in mind. Consequently,some habitats have becomedegraded because of succession,desiccation or other processes.

LIFE is providing cofinance from theEU for the, sometimes massive,investments needed to clear thisbacklog and boost these areas backto a favourable conservation state,as well as to start up the othernecessary activities listed under thepreceding bullet points. An example:the Belgian LIFE military project isclearing 1,266 ha of heathlands fromovergrowth and removing 855 ha ofinvading alien trees. On the SalisburyPlain, LIFE is restoring chalkgrasslands by cutting 140 ha oftrees and dealing with over 400 haof invading scrub. It is alsohelping to install appropriate grazingmanagement on over 2,000 ha chalkdowns, experimenting through a pilotscheme.

In fact, given the complete spectrumof practical work to implement Natura2000 at site level which LIFEcofinances, it is remarkable that thereare but 28 projects with a militarydimension among the 800 LIFE-Nature projects so far. Otherprominent stakeholders (farmers,forestry, hunting …) are involved inmuch greater numbers of LIFEprojects.

LIFE supports theexchange of experience

The LIFE fund supports producingdocumentation on best practice andlessons learned, for disseminationand ‘technology transfer’. Anotheraspect supported by LIFE-Nature isbringing conservation managers,stakeholders, scientists, etc. togetherto exchange experience, questionsand ideas. Because there are LIFEprojects across Europe, LIFE can, anddoes, play a unique role in bringingtogether people from many countriesaround a common conservationtheme. This is usually done throughworkshops or seminars organized bya LIFE-Nature project which invitescolleagues from other LIFE projectsdealing with the issue in question,plus relevant stakeholders,authorities, etc.

LIFE projects are supporting theexchange of experience and bestpractice between military sites, by co-funding dissemination activities likethe July 2004 workshop on managingmilitary Natura 2000 areas, held inSalisbury. A similar conference isplanned for Sept. 2005 in Belgium. Dual use of militaryexpertise: armed forceshelping Natura 2000

A number of LIFE-Nature projectshave received technical assistancefrom the Armed Forces, even thoughnot one of the sites was a militaryarea. In these cases, the militaryprovides manpower, machinery orspecialist knowledge towardssolving a challenge facing theproject on the ground. Not dissimilarto, though of course on a very much

Summary p. 75


lower scale, the Armed Forcespitching in when there are floods orstorm damage.

In the LIFE cases, the militaryprovides its help free of charge – it isconsidered a useful exercise and isgood for PR (‘good neighbour’ policy).

The armed forces carry out manytraining exercises, and usually thesehave as sole purpose the training ofthe troops. However, in cases like theLIFE-Nature projects Dijlevallei andNorth Savo, the military exercise hasa dual purpose: training the troops,but also achieving a conservationgoal. For the armed forces, combiningan exercise with a task for the publicgood is not only intrinsicallysatisfying, it also raises the profile ofthe military within the wider

community. Conservation operatorscould do worse than think of themilitary when they face tasks whichthe armed forces potentially have thecapacity to deal with.

Looking to the future:military training trendsand Natura 2000

Training exercises are increasinglybeing shared within a Europeannetwork of NATO partners (which hasgrown significantly since 1990). Forinstance, the Dutch armed forces,hampered by the relatively small sizeof their training areas, are trainingmore often on large sites abroad –Salisbury Plain, but also in Polandand Denmark. Even the UK Forces areheading to large training areas in

Poland because no UK site, not evenSalisbury Plain, is big enough to live-fire Apache attack helicopters. So a“division of labour” betweenEuropean military training sites,spreading the load more equitably,could gradually come into being. Thismay pose interesting new challengesfor the conservation management ofthose sites which are also part of theNatura 2000 network.

Read MoreFor more information on the individualLIFE projects discussed in thisbrochure, or for background readingon military conservation policies andachievements, please consult the twoannexes which follow in the nextpages.

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ANNEXES



ANNEX I Read more

Brochures

The Danish Ministry of DefenceEnvironmental Strategy 2003Ministry of Defence, Holmens Kanal,42- DK- 1060, Copenhague KTel.: + 45 33 92 33 20Email: [email protected]://www.fmn.dk

Nature’s Defence : nature manage-ment plans for the Danish ArmedForces’ training areasMinistry of Defence and Ministry ofEnvironmentMinistry of Defence:Holmens Kanal, 42 -DK 1060,Copenhague KTel.: + 45 33 92 33 20Email: [email protected]://www.fmn.dk

Ministry of Environment:Haraldsgade 53 – DK 2100Copenhague ØTel.: + 45 39 47 20 00Email: [email protected]://www.skovognatur.dk

Respecting the environment:Conservation on the Defenceestate and the role of the MODConservation OfficeMOD Conservation Office,Blandford House,Farnborough Road, Aldershot,Hampshire GU11 2HATel:+44 1252 34 89 89http://www.defence-estates.mod.uk

Sanctuary, the Ministry of DefenceConservation MagazineDE Conservation,Blandford House,Farnborough Road, Aldershot,Hampshire GU11 2HATel:+44 1252 34 89 89Email: [email protected]://www.mod.uk/policy/conservation/sanctuary

The living landscape,Dstl Porton DownConservation Officer,Dstl Porton DownTel: + 44 1980 61 33 73Email: [email protected]

Defensie in natuur en landschapDGW&T, Ministerie van Defensie,P.O box 20701,2500 ES The Hague,The NetherlandsTel: + 31 70 318 8459http://www.dgwt.nl

Defence Environmental PolicyPlan 2004Coordinator of spatial planningand environment, NetherlandsMinistry of DefenceP.O box 20701,2500 ES The Hague,The NetherlandsTel.: + 31 70 318 8459http://www.mindef.nl

De natuur op de militaire domeinenLt Kol Theetaert, Divisie LeefmilieuStafdepartement Welzijn,Generale Staf van Defensie,Koningin Astrid Kwartier,Bruynstraat – B-1120 BrusselEmail: [email protected]

Richtlinie zur nachhaltigenNutzung von Übungsplätzen inDeutschland

Natur auf ÜbungsplätzenBundesministerium der VerteidigungPresse-und InformationsstabReferat ÖffentlichkeitsarbeitPostfach 13 28, D-53003 BonnEmail: [email protected]

Défense et protection de la NatureMinistère de la Défense,Délégation à l’information et à lacommunication de la Défense.14 rue St DominiqueF- 00450 ARMEESTel. : + 33 1 44 42 30 11http://www.defense.gouv.fr

Esercito e ambiente. Istitutogeografico De Agostini. StatoMaggiore dell’ Esercito italiano.240 pag. Editor: Mancini F., 1998

Le ‘oasi’ militari. Protette percaso: Modus Vivendi, 0:18-29Editor: Mondino L., 1999

NATO, Science, Society,Security Newshttp://www.nato.int/science

Selected websites

Ministerie van Landsverdediging/Ministère de la Défense nationale,Belgiumhttp://www.mil.be

Ministry of Defence, Denmarkhttp://www.fmn.dk

Ministry of Defence, UKhttp://www.defence-estates.mod.uk/conservation_enviro/conservation/index.htm

Ministère de la Défense, Francehttp://www.defense.gouv.fr

Bundesministerium derVerteidigung, Germanyhttp://www.bundeswehr.de

Ministerie van Defensie,The Netherlandshttp://www.mindef.nl

NATOhttp://www.nato.int/ccms

European Commissionhttp://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/nature/home.htm

LIFE home pagehttp://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/life/home.htm

Natura 2000 newsletterSubscription: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/news/natura/index_en.htm

LIFE Nature Focus brochures:http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/life/infoproducts/lifenaturepublications.htm

LIFE for NATURA 2000: 10 yearsimplementing the regulation

LIFE and agri-environmentsupporting Natura 2000 –Experience from the LIFEprogramme

LIFE-Nature: communicating withstakeholders and the generalpublic – Best practice examplesfor Natura 2000

LIFE for Birds : 25 years of thebirds directive : the contribution ofLIFE-Nature projects

Alien species and natureconservation in the EU – the role ofthe LIFE programme


http://www.fmn.dk

http://www.fmn.dk



http://www.skovognatur.dk

http://www.defence-estates.mod.uk


http://www.mod.uk/policy/conservation/sanctuary


http://www.dgwt.nl

http://www.mindef.nl



http://www.defense.gouv.fr

http://www.nato.int/science

http://www.mil.be

http://www.fmn.dk

http://www.defence-estates.mod.uk/conservation_enviro/conservation/index.htm

http://www.defense.gouv.fr

http://www.bundeswehr.de/C1256EF4002AED30/CurrentBaseLink/W264ZKC6846INFODE

http://www.mindef.nl

http://www.nato.int/ccms

http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/nature/home.htm

http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/life/home.htm

http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/life/infoproducts/lifenaturepublications.htm

http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/news/natura/index_en.htm

Acronym Full name and title Contact

Dorset heaths LIFE92/NAT/UK/013300 Protection and Mr. Dante MunnsManagement of lowland heathland in Dorset [email protected]

Salisbury Plain LIFE 00/NAT/UK/7071, Improving Mr. Stephen Davismanagement of Salisbury Plain [email protected] 2000 sites

Hungarian meadow viper LIFE04/NAT/HU/0116,Establishing the Dr. Balint Halpernbackground of saving the Hungarian [email protected] viper (Vipera ursinii rakosiensis)from extinction

Otis tarda in Hungary LIFE04/NAT/HU/0109, Conservation of Mr. Andras BankovicsOtis tarda in Hungary [email protected]

Imperial eagle LIFE02/NAT/HU/8627, Conservation of Mr. Marton HorvathAquila heliaca Aquila heliaca in the Carpathian basin [email protected]

Flemish military sites LIFE03/NAT/B/0024, Geintegreerd Mr. Hans Jochemsnatuurherstel op militaire domeinen in [email protected] 2000

Danish sand dunes LIFE 02/NAT/DK/008584, Restoration of Mrs. Hanne Stadsgaard Jensendune habitats along the Danish West Coast [email protected]

Marais calcaires en Lorraine LIFE99/NAT/B/006285, Restauration de Mme. Joelle Huysecomcomplexes marécageux en Lorraine belge [email protected]

Boreal forests Finland LIFE03/NAT/FIN/000034, Boreaalisten Mr. Jorma Koivurinnemetsien ja puustoisten soiden ennallistaminen [email protected]

Border mires LIFE98/NAT/UK/5432, Active blanket bog Mr. Duncan Huttrehabilitation project [email protected]

Scottish raised bogs LIFE00/NAT/UK/7078, Restoration of Scottish Mr. S. Brooksraised bogs [email protected]

Sefton coast LIFE95/NAT/000818, A conservation strategy Mr. Ceri Jonesfor the sand dunes of the Sefton coast [email protected] England

ANNEX II LIFE-Nature project contacts

Short descriptions of each of these projects plus (for some) summaries of their main results can be consulted

and downloaded from http://www.europa.eu.int/comm.environment (LIFE website)

List of projects mentioned

Annexes p. 79














Flora Menorca LIFE 00/NAT/E/007355, Conservación de Mr. Juan Juaneda Francoáreas con flora amenazada en las isla de [email protected]

Andalusian flora LIFE94/E/001203, Recuperación, Mr. Guillermo Ceballosconservación y manejo de las especies [email protected] de la flora silvestre andaluza

Atlantische Heide LIFE99/NAT/B/006298, Intermediair Mr. Joost DewyspelaereAtlantische Heide in Vlaanderen [email protected]

Posidonia beds LIFE00/NAT/E/007303, Protección de las Mr. Pere Bonetpraderas de Posidonia en las LICs Baleares [email protected]

North Savo LIFE 02/NAT/FIN/008470, Restoration of mire Mr. Kalle Ruokolainenand bog ecosystems in North Savo with [email protected] to environmental education

Trockenrasen in LIFE 02/NAT/D/8461, Wiederherstellung und Mr. Moritz SmittRheinland-Pfalz Erhalt von Trockenrasen in Rheinland-Pfalz [email protected]

Dijlevallei LIFE/98/NAT/B/005171, Dijlevallei Mr. Joost [email protected]

Kuusamo LIFE96/NAT/3026, Protection of old growth Mr. Eero Kaakinenforests in the Kuusamo area [email protected]

Larus audouini LIFE03/NAT/E/000061,Conservación de Mr. Matias GarciaLarus audouini en España (Isla Grosa), Murcia [email protected]

Orford Ness LIFE94/NAT/000850 and Mr Grant LahoarLIFE97NAT/UK/4245, Conservation of [email protected] Ness

Grindenschwarzwald LIFE00/NAT/D/7039, Grindenschwarzwald Mr. Daniel [email protected]

Boddenlandschaft and Muritz LIFE91/NAT/D/8194, Aufbau und Sicherung Dr. Konowdes Nationalparkes Vorpommersche [email protected] und des Müritz National-parkes

Hainich LIFE95/D/000086, Managementplan für Mr. Manfred Großmanden Nationalpark Hainich [email protected]

Integral Coastal Conservation LIFE96/NAT/B/3032, Integral Coastal Mr. Jean-Louis HerrierInitiative Conservation Initiative [email protected]

Bats in central Europe LIFE95/NAT/D/000045 Grenzüberschreitendes Dr. Christine HarbuschProgramm zum Schutz der Fledermäuse im [email protected] Mitteleuropa

Lago Trasimeno LIFE02/NAT/IT/008556, Ripristino habitat Mr. Luis Montagnolie conservazione ardeidi sul Lago Trasimeno [email protected]
















Name LIFE (“L’Instrument Financier pour l’Environnement” / The financing instrument for the environment)

Type of intervention co-financing of actions in favour of the environment in the twenty-five Member Statesof the European Union, in the candidate countries who are associated to LIFE and in certain third countries borderingthe Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea.

LIFE is made up of three branches: “LIFE-Nature”, “LIFE-Environment” and “LIFE – Third countries”.

Objectives> with a view to sustainable development in the European Union, contribute to the drawing up, implementation

and updating of Community policy and legislation in the area of the environment;> explore new solutions to environmental problems on a Community scale.

Projects any natural or legal person, provided that the projects financed meet the following general criteria:> they are of Community interest and make a significant contribution to the general objectives;> they are carried out by technically and financially sound participants;> they are feasible in terms of technical proposals, timetable, budget and value for money.

Types of project> Eligible for LIFE-Environment are innovative pilot and demonstration projects which bring environment-related

and sustainable development considerations together in land management, which promote sustainable waterand waste management or which minimise the environmental impact of economic activities, products and services.LIFE-Environment also finances preparatory projects aiming at the development or updating of Communityenvironmental actions, instruments, legislation or policies.

> Eligible for LIFE-Nature are nature conservation projects which contribute to maintaining or restoring natural habitatsand/or populations of species in a favourable state of conservation within the meaning of the « Birds » (79/409/EEC)and « Habitats » (92/43/EEC) Community Directives and which contribute to the establishment of the Europeannetwork of protected areas – NATURA 2000. LIFE-Nature also finances “co-op” projects aiming to developthe exchange of experiences between projects.

> Eligible for LIFE-Third countries are projects which contribute to the establishment of capacities and administrativestructures needed in the environmental sector and in the development of environmental policy and action programmesin some countries bordering the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea.

Implementation National authorities in the Member States or third countries send the Commission the proposalsof projects to be co-financed (for LIFE-Environment preparatory projects, the applicants send their proposals directlyto the Commission). The Commission sets the date for sending the proposals annually. It monitors the projectsfinanced and supports the dissemination of their results. Accompanying measures enable the projects to be monitoredon the ground.

Period covered (LIFE III) 2000 to 2006.

Funds approximately 638 million for 2000-2004 and 317 million for 2005-2006.

ContactEuropean Commission – Environment Directorate-GeneralLIFE Unit – BU-9 02/1 - 200 rue de la Loi - B-1049 Brussels – Fax: +32 2 296 95 56Internet: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/life/home.htm

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life, natura 2000 and the military

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