Protected-species derogation file
Derogation for impacts on protected species (L.411-2)
Where a project affects protected species or their habitats, a derogation file (French L.411-2) must be prepared and submitted to the national nature-protection council.
Protected-species derogation file
Where a project affects protected species or their habitats, a derogation file (French L.411-2) must be prepared and submitted to the national nature-protection council. ARKENOR builds the file, demonstrating the absence of alternatives and the mitigation and offsetting measures.
What triggers it
Protected species are protected as individuals and as habitat.
French law prohibits destroying protected species, and also prohibits destroying or degrading their habitat, including outside protected areas. A project affecting either needs a derogation, granted only where three conditions are met together: there is no satisfactory alternative, the project serves a recognised public interest, and the derogation does not harm the conservation status of the species population.
The first condition is the one most often underestimated. Demonstrating that no satisfactory alternative exists means documenting alternatives that were studied and rejected, with reasons, which is only possible if they were genuinely studied, at a stage when they were still available.
The procedure
National examination, and a timetable that is not yours.
The file is examined by a national scientific body whose opinion carries considerable weight, and the process adds months that cannot be compressed by resourcing. Building the project timetable backwards from commissioning, rather than forwards from the design freeze, is what keeps the programme honest.
The file rests on four-season surveys, sets out the avoid-reduce-offset sequence in full, and specifies offsetting measures with their monitoring. A gap in any of the three is a gap in all of them.
Going further
Related pages.
The derogation sits inside a wider set of procedures.
- Four-season surveys — the evidence base
- Avoid-reduce-offset sequence — must be exhausted before derogation
- Offsetting measures — usually a condition of the derogation
- Environmental impact assessment — the containing file
- Natural component of the impact assessment — where impacts are characterised
- Site ecologist — enforcing the conditions during works
- Working on infrastructure projects — where derogations are most frequent
- ARKENOR: environmental project management — assembling and defending the file
Discuss your project
Engineering, environmental advisory and independent certification under one group, with a strict separation of roles.
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