Emerald Network

The Emerald Network is an ecological network comprised of Areas of Special Conservation Interest (ASCI), and creation of the network is mandatory for all countries that are party to the Bern Convention. The network includes areas of great ecological importance for threatened species and habitat types that are protected under the Bern Convention. The Emerald Network programme was initiated by the Council of Europe as part of its activities in the implementation of the Bern Convention. In the European Union Member States, the Emerald Network is identical to the NATURA 2000 ecological network. For EU candidate countries, the Emerald Network project represents the phase of preparation for and a direct contribution to the implementation of the NATURA 2000 programme.

Phase I of the Emerald Network project
In the period from 2001 to 2003, the Council of Europe financed the implementation of the Emerald Network pilot project in a series of European countries. In Croatia, the pilot project was carried out in2003 by the then Ministry of Environmental Protection and Physical Planning, in co-operation with domestic scientists and with the financial support of the Council of Europe.
During the implementation of this project:
• the species and habitat types in Croatia that are protected pursuant to Resolutions 4 and 6 of the Bern Convention were established;
• the specificities of Croatia that are missing in these lists (especially marine and underground habitats and endemic taxa) were analysed;
• the Emerald database was compiled for six protected areas (Plitvice Lakes National Park, Velebit Nature Park, Lonjsko Polje Nature Park, Kopački Rit Nature Park, the proposed Neretva Nature Park and the Crna Mlaka Ornithological Reserve) having international protection status, covering a total area of 309,867 ha or 5.47% of the Croatian territory.

 Phase II of the Emerald Network project
Phase II of the Emerald Network project was carried out by the State Institute for Nature Protection during 2006. The Institute established the Expert Group for species and habitats, which compiled the necessary lists of species and habitats and determined the state of data for each species and habitat type and considered the possible proposals for supplementing the resolution of the Bern Convention, i.e. the EU Directive.

The project results were:

• lists of species and habitat types protected pursuant to Resolution 4 and 6 of the Bern Convention, Annex I of the Birds Directive and Annexes I and II of the Habitats Directive by biogeographical region;
• creation of new and amended existing GIS distribution maps for selected species and habitat types;
• establishment of the state of distribution data for Emerald/NATURA 2000 species and habitat types in Croatia;
• collection of scientific data necessary for drafting the proposal for amendments to Resolution 4 and 6 of the Bern Convention, i.e. the appropriate annexes of the EU Directives;
• compilation of a list of ASCI areas of the Emerald network (potential NATURA 2000 areas) - with more than 90% of the area of the existing final proposal envisaged;
• inclusion of proposed ASCI areas (potential NATURA 2000 areas) into the Emerald database;
demarcation of digital boundaries for all processed ASCI areas in GIS;
• in June 2006, a meeting was held with representatives of expert services in public institutes for the management of national and nature parks; the data entered into the Emerald base for their areas were presented, and co-operation agreed for the collection of new data and development of a programme of priority research and monitoring;
• development of a web application showing maps of ASCI areas and corresponding data from the Emerald base.
For more information, visit: http://www.cro-nen.hr/

Phase III of the Emerald Network project

In 2008, the State Institute for Nature Protection carried out the third phase of the project, also financed by the Council of Europe, pursuant to the Agreement signed with the European Environment Agency (EEA). As part of Phase III, the Croatian proposal for the Emerald Network was finalised and presented at the end of 2008 to the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention. Before the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention can give final acceptance for the proposed Emerald Network, it is subject to expert assessment. For that reason, the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Council of Europe are organising a biogeographical seminar in November 2010 for all the countries participating in the project. Evaluation of the proposed Emerald Network will consider not only the requirements of the Bern Convention, but also the experience and criteria for establishment of the NATURA 2000 ecological network. In this way, this assessment will be of great importance for the future evaluation of the proposed NATURA 2000 network.
Review the brochure on the Emerald Network and Croatian areas below under Documents.