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Birds of Danish SPA's

Designation and management of Danish SPAs

Designation

The Council Directive 79/409/EEC of 2 April 1979 on the conservation of wild birds among other bird protection measures obliges (Article 4.1 and 4.2) Member States to classify the most suitable areas for conservation of Appendix I species and regularly occurring migratory species as Special Protection Areas (SPAs).

As a consequence, Denmark in 1983 designated 111 SPAs. The selection of these areas was based on one or both of the following criteria:

1. The site should be identified as a site of im- portance (mostly breeding sites) for at least one bird species included in Annex I of the Directive.
2. The site should be identified as a regular staging or wintering area for at least 1% of the flyway population of one or several species not included in Appendix 1.

37 SPAs were designated solely because of their importance for Appendix I species, 15 solely because of high numbers of other staging migrant birds, 59 areas fulfilled both criteria.

One area (no. 79) fulfilled neither¹ . For details regarding individual areas see Appendix 2.

General protection of SPAs

In 1994, an executive order²  set up rules for the administration of the Danish SPAs. Besides giving the precise boundaries of the SPAs, the Executive Order inter alia provides rules and guidelines for the administration of the sites by a codification of previous license, planning and management practice and laid down the final boundaries of the Danish SPAs. These guidelines reflect the substantial regulations in the Birds Directive including the amendments added as a consequence of the Council Directive 92/94 of 21 May 1992: the EC Habitats Directive.

No sites were added to or removed from the list; only a number of minor adjustments of existing boundaries were made. In some cases, neighbouring nature sites were included in the SPAs; in other cases, small areas without any significance were excluded. The excluded areas were mainly urban or agricultural lands. Moreover, the Executive Order established that all 27 Danish Ramsar sites in their entirety are included in the SPAs.

The Executive Order states that it is compulsory to consider the SPAs in the regional and municipal planning. No plans will be allowed that bring about deterioration or significant disturbance to the species for which the areas have been designated.

Reserve network

In 1992 78 wildlife reserves was in effect in order to protect breeding, migrating and wintering birds from disturbance and hunting. 48 of these together with a number of other types of reserves totalling 66 reserves were mainly created to protect migrating and wintering waterbirds. The area covered was 705 sq. km. with hunting free zones (525 sq. km. within 32 SPAs). Hunting on the marine territory from motor boat was prohibited in a further 2956 sq. km. of which 1410 sq. km. was within SPAs.

During the revision of the Hunting and Wildlife Management Act in 1992 the Danish Hunters Association, the Danish Ornithological Society and the Danish Society for the Conservation of Nature proposed to establish a network of reserves for staging and wintering waterbirds. Following scientific evaluation of the proposal by the National Environmental Research Institute the National Forest and Nature Agency started implementing the proposal in 1993 with a view to complete the work in 2000. The aim of the network is to provide a better protection against hunting and other recreational disturbances in order to improve the conservation status for waterbirds in Denmark. The original proposal was to establish or enhance 73 reserves in 46 SPAs leading to an increase in hunting and disturbance-free core zones of approximately 650 sq. km. supplemented with an additional 870 sq. km. with regulations of other recreational activities and certain hunting methods.

The new network of reserves within the SPAs is expected to lead to a marked increase in the number of dabbling ducks and geese, due to an increase in the average time spent in Denmark by migrating populations and to population increase due to the improved survival. The reserve network should also lead to improved hunting outside the network. Investigations carried out after the establishment of the reserves support the expectations. At present 53 of the proposed reserves have been established covering 1114 sq. km. in total.

1 This was designated because it holds the only Danish breeding population of Razorbill (Alca torda) and (Common) Guillemot (Uria aalge). The Baltic breeding birds of these species can in fact be considered separate populations (Durinck et al. 1994) and the Danish parts constitute considerably more than 1% of these populations: 13-20% for Guillemot and 4% for Razorbill. However, these populations are mostly resident and thus do not fall under article 4.2 of the Directive.

2 Executive Order No 408 of 25 May, 1994 on the Demarcation and Administration of EC Bird Protection Areas and Ramsar Sites issued by the Ministry of Environment. The executive Order 408 has since been superseded by the Executive Order 782 of 1 November 1998 from the Ministry of Environment and Energy, which integrates the rules for administration of Ramsar Sites, SPAs and proposed Sites of Community Interest (SCIs).

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