LIFE, Natura 2000 and the military

This brochure looks both at the LIFE-Nature projects which had a military dimension as at the context within which these projects took place.
The term “military areas” covers a wide and heterogeneous range of terrains and infrastructures owned and/or used by the armed forces. Although some have no particular interest for nature conservation, most of the military areas, and especially those used for training and testing, contain significant, even
spectacular, amounts of natural and semi-natural habitats and landscapes, with corresponding abundances of wildlife. Sometimes they are among the richest and most important sites for biodiversity in their country. Training areas can measure in the thousands or tens of thousands of hectares each, but smaller military areas should not be overlooked: between airfield runways or around munitions depots and radar installations, for instance, ecologically interesting pockets of nature often occur.
So far there are 28 on-going or completed LIFE-Nature projects with a military dimension.