WWF has recognised that the Europe 2020 strategy focuses on the key role that biodiversity and ecosystem services plays in delivering economic prosperity.

However, WWF believes the strategic plan overlooks the economic importance of nature protection and misappropriates biodiversity in the final draft.

Tony Long, WWF’s European Director, says he is surprised that the final draft of the strategy, released on March 3, doesn’t focus on the economics of biodiversity, but more on climate change and the economic needs of a low-carbon economy.

“Biodiversity is a huge part of our economy and this is why it is even more surprising that the EU 2020 strategy does not pay proper attention to it,” Long said.

Long made the comments in regards to previous statements from the European Commission which said the annual loss of biodiversity and ecosystems totals nearly €50 billion.

In November 2009 the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme, released a report that said the cost of nature conservation was far outweighed by the social and economic benefits.

The report encouraged international policymakers to integrate the economic capital of nature into decision-making and put price tags on nature’s different ecosystem services to make them easily visible to economies and societies.

But the Europe 2020 strategy only mentions biodiversity as a means of addressing climate change, and its main stated objective is to support the shift towards a low-carbon and resource-efficient economy.

Janez Potočnik, EU Environment Commissioner, says the strategy does understand the economic benefits of biodiversity and claims the cost of “doing nothing to protect biodiversity by 2050” would be 7 per cent of the world’s GDP.

This year’s Davos World Economic Forum, for the first time, placed special emphasis on the importance of biodiversity, representing the possibility of a changing trend in biodiversity protection in the corporate world.

By Taylor Turner