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Parliamentary question - E-001571/2024Parliamentary question
E-001571/2024
European Parliament

Establishment of protection zones along rivers and streams in the EU

29.8.2024

Question for written answer  E-001571/2024
to the Commission
Rule 144
Maria Ohisalo (Verts/ALE)

The freshwater pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) is recognised worldwide as an endangered species (IUCN).[1] In the EU Habitats Directive (Annexes II and V), the status of the freshwater pearl mussel is assessed as ‘unfavourable or bad’.[2] Additionally, the freshwater pearl mussel is defined as a ‘keystone species’,[3] i.e. if the population perishes, the entire river ecosystem collapses and other species will disappear.

In August 2024, an important freshwater pearl mussel bed habitat was destroyed in Finland in the village of Hukkajoki when a forest machine in a protected river caused thousands of these mussels to perish by driving across the river hundreds of times.[4]

Freshwater pearl mussels can only survive in fast-flowing rivers and streams in shaded areas that are clean and well-oxygenated. Intensive forestry has meant that soil material and logging waste flow continuously into rivers, and these cause the mussels to be starved of oxygen and perish.

Experts have proposed one solution to this: a protection zone at least 50 metres wide alongside the rivers, to prevent soil material from flowing into them.[5] The destruction of the freshwater pearl mussel population in Finland, however, clearly shows that we cannot merely rely on recommendations where conservation is concerned. For that reason, the 50-metre protection zone should unambiguously be made law.

The EU is committed to halting habitat loss by virtue, for example, of the EU Biodiversity Strategy[6] and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity[7] Framework. By protecting habitats in flowing bodies of water, the protection zone could prevent environmental disasters such as the destruction of the freshwater pearl mussel population everywhere in Europe. It would, furthermore, bring greater benefits for nature and society, since diverse waterside vegetation prevents erosion and allows numerous animal and plant species to thrive.

What does the Commission intend to do to ensure that suitably broad protection zones alongside rivers and streams are made law?

Submitted: 29.8.2024

Last updated: 4 September 2024
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