Financing Natura 2000

The Commission wishes to provide further advice and support to Member States on how best to access and use EU funding mechanism for financing the management of the Natura 2000 network. The next phase in our awareness raising strategy is to link the use of the Guidance Handbook on financing Natura 2000 with the elaboration of management plans. We intend to do this by developing an IT-tool to apply the ideas developed in the Guidance Handbook directly to management planning for Natura 2000 sites. The IT-tool is planned to create/outline u0084co-financing plansu0093 for individual Natura 2000 sites. The elaboration of the Guidance Handbook together with an IT-tool for easy access to the relevant information is one further step in the strategy of the Commission to support the implementation of Natura 2000 in Member States. Natura 2000 is the cornerstone of the Community efforts to the goal of halting the decline of biodiversity by 2010.