Management of Natura 2000 sites on military training areas

There is a special importance of military training areas (MTAs) for the protectionand maintenance of our biodiversity in Europe. MTAs host a number of specifichabitat types and species protected by the Habitats Directive, especially habitats ofthe open landscape, which developed through and rely on an extensive (often historical)agricultural use, a disturbance regime (of the military training) and /or specificconservation measures. Many important habitats of EU community relevance,especially those requiring oligotrophic to mesotrophic conditions, have some of theirbest and largest representation on military areas and thus have been integrated intothe Natura 2000 network of protected areas. Most of these habitat types and specieshave an unfavourable conservation status at the biogeographical level. Actively used,as well as decommissioned, MTAs play an important role in maintaining or improvingthe conservation status of several of these habitat types and species.This volume presents the proceedings of the workshop "Management of Natura 2000sites in Military Training Areas", which was held by the German Federal Agencyfor Nature Conservation from 28 September to 1 October 2015 at the InternationalAcademy for Nature Conservation at the Isle of Vilm (Germany). The workshopdiscussed the specific conditions for the management of open landscapes on activeand former military training areas (Natura 2000 sites). Experts from several EUMember States presented and discussed management measures to maintain or torestore habitat types and habitats of species on MTAs, problems during managementand solutions to overcome these, best practice examples of Natura 2000 managementon MTAs and the handling of unexploded ordnance devices (UXO) in order to allowor facilitate the necessary nature management.