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Conservation policy under a roadless perspective: Minimizing fragmentation in Greece

December 2020
Biological Conservation 252:108828

DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108828

Project: Roadless areas and sustainable development in Greece

Authors:

Vassiliki I Kati

University of Ioannina

Christina Kassara

University of Patras

Maria Psaralexi

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Olga Tzortzakaki

University of Patras

Show all 7 authorsHide

Land use change poses as the top threat for biodiversity decline, and road sprawl as a key driver behind it globally. According to the recent Landscape Fragmentation Indicator (LFI), Greece is less fragmented than the rest of Europe but presents higher rates of fragmentation increase. We developed the Roadless Fragmentation Indicator (RFI) to monitor fragmentation in more natural ecosystems. The RFI calculates the percentage of land that is covered by roadless areas (RAs), defined as land patches over 1 km2 that are over 1 km away from the nearest road. We produced the roadless map of Greece, concluding to 1115 RAs ranked by size (1–256 km2) and to a national RFI of less than 5%. The RFI reflected naturalness, was significantly higher in the Natura 2000 network, and was more sensitive in less fragmented zones. Six mountains (0.51% of Greek land) have remained largely roadless (RAs ≥ 50 km2) and should be protected as such. We call for a straightforward roadlessness policy under a “European Roadless Rule” that would legally protect at least 2% of European land as road-free area. We also call for no further unjustified road sprawl in more natural and least fragmented ecosystems, as a measure to be integrated in all sectors of EU policy and particularly in the spatial planning of development projects. We recommend a five-step roadlessness guideline to be implemented in the European Union, including Greece, as a measure to effectively address biodiversity decline.

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Biological Conservation 252 (2020) 108828

Available online 17 November 2020

Policy analysis

Conservation policy under a roadless perspective: Minimizing

fragmentation in Greece

Vassiliki Kati

, Christina Kassara

, Maria Psaralexi

, Olga Tzortzakaki

, Maria Petridou

Antonia Galani

, Monika T. Hoffmann

University of Ioannina, Department of Biological Applications & Technology, University Campus, Ioannina 45500, Greece

Pindos Perivallontiki Non-Prot Organization, Metsovou 12, Ioannina 4522, Greece

Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Mickiewicza 33, 31-120 Krak´

ow, Poland

A R T I C L E I N F O

Original content: V. Kati, C. Kassara, M.

Psaralexi, O. Tzortzakaki, M. Petridou, A.

Galani, et al. The roadless map of Greece

Mendeley Data, v1 (2020), p. 1,

10.17632/s6zh89fb5c

Keywords:

Fragmentation

Mountains

Natura 2000

Policy

Roadless areas

Spatial planning

A B S T R A C T

Land use change poses as the top threat for biodiversity decline, and road sprawl as a key driver behind it

globally. According to the recent Landscape Fragmentation Indicator (LFI), Greece is less fragmented than the

rest of Europe but presents higher rates of fragmentation increase. We developed the Roadless Fragmentation

Indicator (RFI) to monitor fragmentation in more natural ecosystems. The RFI calculates the percentage of land

that is covered by roadless areas (RAs), dened as land patches over 1 km

that are over 1 km away from the

nearest road. We produced the roadless map of Greece, concluding to 1115 RAs ranked by size (1–256 km

) and

to a national RFI of less than 5%. The RFI reected naturalness, was signicantly higher in the Natura 2000

network, and was more sensitive in less fragmented zones. Six mountains (0.51% of Greek land) have remained

largely roadless (RAs ≥50 km

) and should be protected as such. We call for a straightforward roadlessness

policy under a “European Roadless Rule” that would legally protect at least 2% of European land as road-free

area. We also call for no further unjustied road sprawl in more natural and least fragmented ecosystems, as

a measure to be integrated in all sectors of EU policy and particularly in the spatial planning of development

projects. We recommend a ve-step roadlessness guideline to be implemented in the European Union, including

Greece, as a measure to effectively address biodiversity decline.

1. Introduction

We are experiencing the most critical era of human-induced biodi-

versity loss, altering the functioning of ecosystems and imperiling their

capacity to provide goods and services to human systems (Ceballos et al.,

2015; Díaz et al., 2019; Cardinale et al., 2012). Our progress to halt

global biodiversity decline and achieve the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets

is poor to moderate, compromising our ability to meet the relevant

Sustainable Development Goals as well (Díaz et al., 2019). Land use

change, including habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation, has been

recognized as the top threat for biodiversity loss in terrestrial ecosystems

globally, with at least 70% of the world’s land surface to be signicantly

altered (Díaz et al., 2019).

It is not by coincidence that the biodiversity crisis era happens at the

same time with the most explosive road sprawl in human history (Ibisch

et al., 2016; Laurance et al., 2014). With the length of paved roads

projected to increase at a magnitude of 14–23% (Meijer et al., 2018) up

to 59% (Dulac, 2013) by the year 2050, road sprawl is a key driver

triggering or accelerating land use change and is an underlying threat to

biodiversity per se. On one hand, road infrastructure is recognized to

promote economic growth and human welfare: it encourages the pro-

liferation of new development projects, reduces transport cost, increases

gains in agricultural productivity, and delivers social benets, though

not always (Cigu et al., 2019; IPBES, 2019). On the other hand, besides

land use change, roads cause a suite of often irreversible negative effects

to ecosystem functioning (e.g. chemical pollution, hydrological disrup-

tion, soil erosion) and to species (e.g. wildlife vehicle collisions, over-

exploitation, alteration of gene ow, animal behavior change, noise

disturbance, facilitation of biological invasions) (Trombulak and Fris-

sell, 2000; Laurance et al., 2014; Ibisch et al., 2016). Such serious effects

are well-documented for the European biodiversity (Torres et al., 2016;

Garcˆ

es et al., 2020; Konstantopoulos et al., 2020) and evidence is also

* Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: vkati@uoi.gr (V. Kati), cristina.kassara@gmail.com (C. Kassara), mpsarale@gmail.com (M. Psaralexi), olgatzortz@gmail.com (O. Tzortzakaki),

petridoulc@gmail.com (M. Petridou), toniagalani@yahoo.gr (A. Galani), Monika.Hoffmann@hnee.de (M.T. Hoffmann).

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Biological Conservation

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108828

Received 18 June 2020; Received in revised form 5 October 2020; Accepted 16 October 2020

The roadless map of Greece. Mendeley Data,v1. http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/s6zh89fb5c.1

Data

December 2020

Vassiliki I Kati · Christina Kassara · Maria Psaralexi · Olga Tzortzakaki · Monika T Hoffmann

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Dec 2018
EUR URBAN REG STUD

Land ownership determines fundamental interests, prescribing a framework of alliances and oppositions around its development and use. The public sector constitutes one of the main categories of large landowners, although this type of ownership takes more than one form, due to the wide variety of public sector bodies holding property. Public land management became one of the focuses of austerity policies in many European countries after the burst of economic crisis in 2008–2009, externally imposed in those countries that went through bailout programmes. In Greece, the history of land policy shows that a fundamental objective of state policy was the distribution and liquidation of public land, a policy that contributed to the formation of an extensive system of small land ownership. From 2010 onwards, a plethora of formal legislation sought to accelerate development procedures for the remaining large-scale public property, as a background resource to attract large-scale, so-called “strategic”, investments. This paper explores the critical characteristics and outcomes of the reforms to transform public land policy, identifying the interactions with urban planning, before and during the economic crisis. Taking a longer temporal view, the paper highlights the entrenched relationships existing between public land policy, urban planning and property development processes and their significance in the diachronic continuities often concealed in major policy reversals and reforms. It argues that ultimately there is a lack of a coherent and sustainable public property valorisation policy, being deprived of any institutional innovation for new forms of urban development, as well as of social acceptance.

Conservation policy under a roadless perspective: Minimizing fragmentation in Greece

Abstract

Supplementary resource (1)

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