Indicators for Environmental Conflict Monitoring in Natura 2000 Sites

The mission of the Natura 2000 network focuses on humans-nature relationships, recognizing that human activities are part of the ecosystem and they should not rival with the nature. However, the implementation of Natura 2000 network has triggered situations where the human interests came into conflict with those of plants and animals or where different political and social underlyings undermine its effective implementation. Therefore, we propose an ACR framework (anticipation-characterization-resolution) to select a set of indicators which can be used to assess the environmental conflicts from the Natura 2000 network. The selected indicators are relevant at European, national and Natura 2000 site scale and might be useful for the administrative process by providing information about stereotypic conflict situations. This could further help in the management of the Natura 2000 sites in order to contribute to the conservation of Europe's biodiversity.