Wetlands and Water Framework Directive: Protection, Management and Climate Change - Wetlands and Water Framework Directive: Protection, Management and Climate Change - page 2

1.1 Status of Wetlands: Missing Law or Failed
Implementation?

In a contemporary world the number of environmental directives, laws and con-
ventions allows one to suspect that the surrounding nature is protected better than
any time before in the history and the only issue one can expect in environmental
management is the increasing quality (or at least retaining a constant good eco-
logical state) of Earth s ecosystems. Particularly in the case of valuable wetlands,

there is a considerable number of legal agents allowing conservationists to look
bravely towards the future. Starting from the international Ramsar convention on
wetlands, through the European council directive 92/43/EEC on the conservation of
natural habitats and of wild fauna and

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flora [referred to as the habitats directive
(HD)], council directive 2009/147/EC on the conservation of wild birds [referred to
as the birds directive (BD)] and directive 2000/60/EC of the European parliament
and of the council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for community
action in the

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field of water policy [the water framework directive (WFD)], ending at
national and regional regulations (water acts, environmental conservation acts and
regional authority

s resolutions). However, a day-to-day experience in environ-
mental conservation does not allow optimistic attitudes to dominate the practi-
tioner

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s world: ecosystems, in general, deteriorate globally. On top of human-
enforced pressures originating from contamination of waters, agriculture, forestry,
landscape fragmentation and urbanization (Hassan et al. 2005 ), the new threats to
ecosystems such as the ones related to the changing climate (Rannow et al. 2014 )
have been de

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transitional
ecosystems shaped by the physical and biological process typical for both terrestrial
and aquatic environments. One could expect that in face of new challenges that
wetlands are exposed to, the revision of legal frameworks regulating management
and use of these ecosystems should be done and

ned. These threats are vitally critical for wetlands —

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new directives should
be developed. Beforehand, however, concerning the abundance of legal tools, one
should verify whether the general threats for waters and wetlands do not raise from
an improper implementation of existing, in a way much comprehensive, legal
regulations concerning the environment. Then, answering the question

perhaps

“ do regu-

lations miss accuracy or does the implementation fail? one can start the discussion

on how to enhance the protection and management of wetlands, facing new chal-
lenges such as the human- and climate-related pressures.

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1.2 Wetlands and Water Framework Directive

As stated by Joosten and Clarke ( 2002 ), among the continents the most signi cant

loss of water-dependent ecosystems in the global scale was recorded in Europe,
where the areal decline of wetlands reached over 50 % of their pristine extent. They
also state that pressures originating from agriculture and forestry are responsible for