Natura 2000 impact assessment
Assessing impacts on Natura 2000 sites (L.414-4)
Projects likely to affect a Natura 2000 site require a specific impact assessment (French L.414-4) focused on the site's conservation objectives.
Natura 2000 impact assessment
Projects likely to affect a Natura 2000 site require a specific impact assessment (French L.414-4) focused on the site's conservation objectives. ARKENOR conducts the assessment and, where needed, the mitigation measures to secure the authorisation.
Trigger
Proximity is not the criterion, effect is.
A Natura 2000 incidence assessment is required where a project is liable to affect a site of the European network, whether or not it sits inside one. A project several kilometres away can trigger it if it affects water reaching the site, or a species that uses it seasonally. Deciding on distance alone is the classic error.
The assessment is specific to the habitats and species for which the site was designated. It is not a general ecological study: a rich file about biodiversity in general that says little about the designated features answers the wrong question.
Standard of proof
Absence of significant effect must be demonstrated.
The test is stringent. Where significant effect on the site's conservation objectives cannot be excluded, the project can only proceed under restrictive conditions involving imperative reasons of overriding public interest and compensatory measures for the network itself.
It is also cumulative with the general impact assessment, not a substitute for it. Both are produced, and both are examined.
Scale
Assessing effects that travel.
Effects on a European site frequently reach it indirectly: through a watercourse, through a species that feeds on the project site and breeds on the designated one, through noise or light at distance. Establishing whether such a pathway exists requires field work on the project site and knowledge of the designated features, two different exercises that a single desk study does not replace.
Where several projects are planned in the same catchment, their combined effect is assessed even though no single developer controls it, which is the point at which the file has to reason beyond its own boundary.
Going further
Related pages.
Natura 2000 assessment sits alongside these files.
- Environmental impact assessment — produced in parallel
- Natural component (VNEI) — the general ecological chapter
- Four-season surveys — establishing use of the site by designated species
- Water Act file — where effects travel through water
- Green and blue network — connectivity between protected sites
- Offsetting measures — under the restrictive route
- Working on infrastructure projects — linear projects crossing designated sites
- Ecological expertise — the full set of procedures
- Four-season surveys — establishing pathways from the project site
- Working on infrastructure projects — projects that cross catchments
Discuss your project
Engineering, environmental advisory and independent certification under one group, with a strict separation of roles.
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