Artikelbeschreibung
Experts and organisations dealing with rural development from 16 member states of the European Union and Switzerland came together on the 3rd of September 2004 in Brussels in order to discuss the opportunities offered by the set-aside scheme of the Common Agriculture Policy of the EU for nature conservation and species protection.
More than 80 participants attended the meeting and contributed their experience and opinions. It was generally agreed on the positive impact and the large contribution of set-aside models towards countering the dramatic decline of bird species in open fields, as well as that of other animal and plant species. Examples from Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Germany have shown that the areas of land set aside become valuable ecological islands in the open-field landscape.
