Realising the potential of Natura 2000 to achieve EU conservation goals as 2020 approaches

In the last decades the EU has made substantial efforts implementing conservation strategies to halt biodiversity loss. However, little improvement has been reported. Given the proximity of the 2020 landmark set by the EU Biodiversity Strategy and the Convention for Biological Diversity, alternatives to reduce this conservation gap and prospect future strategies must be assessed urgently. Here, we explore how the current Natura 2000 could be used to enhance management of terrestrial and freshwater threatened vertebrates. We identified Natura 2000 sites to increase the coverage of threatened species as target species under two alternative scenarios: a policy-driven approach including only threatened vertebrates listed in the Directives; and a conservation-driven approach, including all the remaining threatened vertebrates. We show that representation of threatened vertebrates in Natura 2000 could be improved by updating lists of target species in less than 1% and 3% of sites in the policy-driven and conservation-driven scenarios, respectively. We highlight the strength of Natura 2000, with sites that complement each other and could contribute to achieving more ambitious conservation targets under future strategies. Prioritisation exercises like this could help realise the potential of this network and enhance the management of threatened species and improve current gaps.