The LIFE+ project “Activate your true wealth. Natura 2000 Network”, promoted by SEO/BirdLife, EFEVerde and Birdlife Europe, and co-financed by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, has received the European Citizen’s Award for its campaign for the European Day of the Natural Network 2000.
 
This award was presented by the European Commission’s Director-General for the Environment, Daniel Calleja, within the framework of the local event European Natura 2000 Award. This conference, which has been organized by SEO/BirdLife at the Las Ensanchas Farm in Ciudad Real, is a territory integrated into the Natura 2000 Network that has served as a stage to commemorate the recognition of this project by the public and the European Union last May.
 
During the award ceremony, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Pablo Saavedra, explained that “the Spanish Natura 2000 Network comprises a total of 1,467 Sites of Community Importance (SCI) and 643 Special Protection Areas for Birds (SPAs)”. In this way, Spain is by far the country in the European Union that has included the largest area in the Network, with around 220,000 km2.
 
Saavedra stressed that the implementation of the Natura 2000 Network in Spain “has made it possible to go from protecting 10% of the earth’s surface by figures of national legislation to 27%, while in the marine environment this increase has been even greater, after going from less than 1% to more than 8% today”.
 
Finally, the Secretary of State for the Environment insisted that there are still important challenges needed to strengthen it, such as “making it known in a much more general way to civil society”.