IBAs are sites of the highest priority in effective bird conservation.
Identifying a bird site, however, does not ensure that the site is formally protected. It is only an indication as to which sites should be protected within the existing site protection network. IBA sites, therefore, should be protected as national parks, reserves or other forms.
In EU states, it is commonplace that IBAs are protected as special protection areas in the Natura 2000 network.
Identification of bird Natura 2000 sites on the basis of IBA lists for UE members was sanctioned by two precedential sentences of the European Court of Justice. The first of them is the case C-355/90, EC Commission against Spain [1993] ECR I-4221 (‚Santoña Marshes’), which required that an IBA site is protected as a SPA. The second one is the sentence TSWE of 1998 in the case C-3/96, the European Commission against the Netherlands, which required that the EU member set a more complete network of Natura 2000 sites, with the IBA catalogue as a reference. It should be added that the only criterion considered by the European Commission during setting Natura 2000 sites is based on scientific research, and socio-economic arguments presented by the interested parties cannot be reasons to change their boundaries. The EC’s position on this matter was backed by the sentence of the EC Court of Justice in the cases C-157/89, Comission against Italy and C-60/05, WWF Italia. Following these sentences, the national lists of bird sites are used by the European Comission as reference to set Natura 2000 special protection areas.
IBA sites and the Natura 2000 network in Poland
In Poland, the Natura 2000 special protection areas were identified referring to the OTOP’s publication of 2004, “Ostoje ptaków o znaczeniu europejskim w Polsce” (Bird sites of European importance in Poland) (ed. Sidło et al.). This publication indicated 140 areas meeting IBA bird site criteria. In 2004-2008, all of them were (in a few stages) designated by the Polish Government as Natura 2000 SPAs.
The data collected by OTOP between 2004-2009 revealed that the list of sites presented in the 2004 publication was incomplete. In 2010, OTOP published “Ostoje ptaków o znaczeniu międzynarodowym w Polsce” (Bird sites of international importance in Poland) (ed. Wilk et al.), which, besides presenting current data for all the 140 IBAs identified earlier, indicated 34 new areas that fulfilled IBA criteria. The 2010 publication is therefore the current reference list for setting a Natura 2000 site and all the 174 sites should be incorporated into the Natura 2000 network.
In 2011, three new Natura 2000 sites of the newly indicated IBAs were established (Góry Izerskie, Sudety Wałbrzysko-Kamiennogórskie and Bagno Pulwy). At present, the Natura 2000 network in Poland consists of 145 SPAs.