The European Mammal Foundation has today (5/5/2019) joined with other European scientific and conservation organisations to call on the European Parliament to undertake a far-reaching reform of the Common Agriculture Policy. Our open letter can be found here.
Over the last few decades, the CAP has driven an intensification of agriculture including the simplification of landscapes, an increase in the use of pesticides and the destruction of semi-natural grasslands and uncultivated land. Together, these practices have had a very significant impact on wildlife. Invertebrate populations have been severely affected, leading to declines in farmland birds and mammals, which are still continuing today.Without a fundamental reform of the CAP, such negative trends will not only diminish nature in current EU member states but will also threaten the nature of candidate ones.
We call on the EU to undertake an ambitious and fundamental review of the CAP to ensure that it will deliver sustainable and diversified agriculture through spatially-targeted measures supporting smaller farms which carry out sustainable farming and maintain high nature value farmland. This can be achieved by truly aligning a future CAP with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs.
European Mammal Foundation
Societas Europaea Herpetologica
Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica