Best practice for bats

JNCC provided the UK representation at the 14^th Meeting of the Advisory Committee to the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats (EUROBATS), in Tochni, Cyprus in May 2009. EUROBATS came into force in 1994, covering 48 European Range States and currently has 30 Parties to the Agreement. The meeting in Cyprus was attended by 68 representatives and observers from 39 Parties and Range States, including, for the first time, Jordan, Syria, Israel and Turkey. JNCC was supported by the UK statutory conservation bodies and the Sovereign Base Areas Administration, Cyprus.

EUROBATS is an Agreement under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, and aims to protect all 45 species of bats identified in Europe, through legislation, education, conservation measures and international co-operation. The UK is the Depository to the Agreement and hosted the First and Third Sessions of the Meeting of Parties (MoP) in 1995 and 2000, so has a long history of engagement with EUROBATS.

The Advisory Committee works to an Action Plan, revised and agreed at each MoP and delivered by intersessional working groups (IWG). Ten IWGs met during the meeting in Tochni, to discuss a range of issues including:

The Year of the Bat in 2011;
wind turbines and bat populations;
using bats as indicators;
sustainable forest management;
autecological studies of bats;
impacts of roads and other traffic infrastructures;
light pollution;
impacts of the use of anti-parasitic drugs for livestock;
bat migration;
conservation and management of critical feeding areas for bats.

There were also six ad-hoc working groups to discuss emerging issues such as producing a code of ethics for bat research, pan-European monitoring, developing new projects, improving the reporting structure, emerging diseases such as white-nosed syndrome, and the expansion of the EUROBATS Agreement to cover the whole western Palaearctic Region.

EUROBATS is also publishing a series of guidelines to encourage common approaches and best practice in bat conservation across Europe. Protecting and managing underground sites for bats, Guidelines for consideration of bats in windfarm projects and a Bats and Forestry leaflet are already published, with Surveillance and monitoring methods for European bats, and Guidelines for the protection of overground roosts in the pipeline. The UK has made significant input to all these publications.

Further information can be obtained from the EUROBATS website: http://www.eurobats.org/

Jessa Battersby

Head of European Intelligence and Advice

Tel: +44 (0)1733 866808

Email: