Selection guidelines for Special Protections Areas
Glossary of terms
- Area
- Areas to be classified as SPAs should:
- be distinct in habitat and/or ornithological importance from
the surroundings and have definable and recognisable
character;
- provide the conservation requirements of the species in the
season(s) and for the particular purposes for which they are
classified.
(see also 'Use' of areas)
- Biogeographical population
- A biogeographical population is a group of birds which breed in
a particular location (or group of locations), breed freely within
the group, and rarely breed or exchange individuals with other
groups.
- Density
- The number of individuals of a species per unit area. In
practice a range of methods are used to assess numbers in SPAs, for
example, breeding pairs and singing males.
- Migratory
- Article I(1)(a) of the Bonn Convention defines a migratory
species as "the entire population or any geographically separate
part of the population of any species or lower taxon of wild
animals, a significant proportion of whose members cyclically and
predictably cross one or more national jurisdictional
boundaries."
- Natura 2000
- EU network of classified SPAs and Special Areas of Conservation
designated under the Habitats Directive.
- Population viability
- Populations which contribute most to population viability
locally and as a whole may show one or more of the following
attributes:
- a level of recruitment into the breeding population that equals
or exceeds immigration and mortality (averaged over a suitable
period of time); and/or
- small scale population fluctuations around a stable population
size; and/or
- an area supporting a population of a species which enables its
geographic range to be maintained on a long-term basis.
Best available scientific data will be used to make such
assessments.
- Ramsar Convention
- Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially
as Waterfowl Habitat. The Convention was adopted at a meeting of
countries concerned with wetlands and waterfowl held in Ramsar,
Iran in 1971 and was ratified by the UK in 1976.
- Regular
- The Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar
Convention has defined the term "regularly" as used in the Ramsar
site selection criteria and this definition applies also to these
Guidelines. A wetland regularly supports a population of a given
size if:
- the requisite number of birds is known to have occurred in two
thirds of the seasons for which adequate data are available, the
total number of seasons being not less than three; or
- the mean of the maxima of those seasons in which the site is
internationally important, taken over at least five years, amounts
to the required level (means based on three or four years may be
quoted in provisional assessments only).
In some instances however, for example species occurring in very
remote areas or which are particularly rare, areas may be
considered suitable on the basis of fewer counts.
- Source
- Area/local population, within which fecundity exceeds the sum
of mortality and immigration, and results in a net emigration of
individuals.
- Special Protection Area (SPA)
- Area classified under Article 4 of the Birds Directive.
- SPA classification
- The process of formally notifying SPAs to the European
Commission.
- Special conservation measures
- Article 4.1 of the Birds Directive requires that "special
conservation measures" are taken to conserve the habitat of species
listed in Annex I of the Directive, to ensure their survival and
reproduction in their area of distribution, in particular the
classification of SPAs. Similar measures must be taken for
regularly occurring migratory species, under Article 4.2.
- Species range
- Article 4 of the Birds Directive requires Member States to
ensure the survival and reproduction of Annex I and regularly
occurring migratory species "in their area of distribution".
Article I of the Habitats Directive necessitates, amongst other
considerations, the "natural range of the species" to be maintained
for a species' status to be regarded as favourable. The range of a
species is the limits of its geographical distribution.
- `Use' of areas
- Article 4.2 of the Birds Directive requires special measures to
be taken for migratory species at "breeding, moulting and wintering
areas and staging posts along their migration routes". The boundary
of each SPA is so determined that it delimits an area which
provides the conservation requirements of the species in the
season(s) and for the particular purposes for which it is
classified.