Donor: EU-IPA
Client:  EU Delegation to Serbia
Budget: 1,489,500 €

Project Description:

The overall objective of the project is to increase the effectiveness of the Beneficiary country’s preparation for EU accession, in area of nature protection. The purpose of this contract is to assist the Beneficiary country to carry out the preparation of establishment of Natura 2000 network.

This Project is conceived to promote and reinforce the implementation of the Natura 2000 network in Serbia and as a tool to reinforce and support the authorities of the Republic of Serbia in the area of Nature conservation. The project expects to achieve five main results. Firstly, the status of the information regarding the species and habitats of the EU Birds and Habitats directives will be reviewed. As regard the Birds Directive and according to the Bird life Int. criteria, the list of 43 potential SPAs has been prepared, therefore the pending work is the revised selection of the IBAs and selection of areas to become SPAs, the demarcation of borders cartography and elaboration of the SDF with the corresponding data.

The following results are expected to be achieved:

  1. Result 1 – Designation process for potential SPAs and pSCis substantially completed (at least 80% of SPAs and at least 50% of pSCis), according to the Birds and Habitat Directives, for NATURA 2000 Network;
  2. Result 2 – Information System, Data base and GJS for NATURA 2000 developed;
  3. Result 3 – Harmonization of National legislation with EU directives related to nature protection revised and completed;
  4. Result 4 – Technical and administrative capacity for implementation of nature protection legislation strengthened;
  5. Result 5 – Public awareness campaign for NATURA 2000 implemented.

Types of services include:

  1. Unifying existing inventories and databases coming from other projects and unifying them in a common database compatible with the BISE (Biodiversity Information System for Europe);
  2. Desktop analysis that will allow the preparation of distribution maps of habitats and species and detecting the main information gaps;
  3. Preparation of draft legal base for managing of the ecological network of the Republic of Serbia including ecologically important sites of national and international importance in line with the EU nature directives and revising and updating the gap assessment for implementation and compliance with EU nature protection acquis, including amendments of the Law of Nature Protection and other legislation;
  4. Development of the Plan for strengthening the administrative capacity on central and local level, including all related aspects: organizational structure, IT tools (role and utilization in different aspects of nature conservation), ecological networks, communication, staff, qualifications, training, equipment, communication with stakeholders, etc.
  5. Preparation of the comprehensive Training plans, (short-term plan will include capacity for implementing appropriate assessment strengthened and harmonized with SEA and EIA procedures, while long-term will be devoted to analysis of possible organisation for sustainable training and re-training mechanism);
  6. Increasing the public awareness towards Nature conservation issues, notably through the Natura 2000 network