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| 105. | The conservation status of protected species and natural habitats is a matter of fact and is not fixed and immutable. The Nature Directives aim to either maintain favourable conservation status where this is already attained, or to reach favourable conservation status where the current status is unfavourable. By referring to reaching or maintaining favourable conservation status, the text of the definition takes account of both possibilities. Thus, where the conservation status is already favourable, adverse effects might compromise the maintenance of a positive status quo; and, where the conservation status is unfavourable, the adverse effects might further deteriorate or jeopardise the needed improvement of a current negative status quo. This means that adverse effects on a protected species or natural habitat in unfavourable status cannot be treated as lying outside the scope of damage to a protected species or natural habitat on the sole ground that the species or habitat is already in a poor condition. Instead, the capacity of the species or habitat to reach favourable conservation status – and any set-back to that capacity – must be addressed. As noted at paragraph 118 below, assessment of the significance of adverse effects must be meaningful at the local level.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.