EU Overseas Entities: havens of biodiversity
30 July 2010. The 28 European Union Overseas Entities (OEs) cover a land area of 4.4 million km2, equivalent in size to continental Europe, and a combined Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of over 15 million km2 – the largest EEZ globally. They range from small islands to large stretches of land and are located across all major oceans of the globe from tropical to polar latitudes.
The OEs host more endemic species than the whole of continental Europe: for example, New Caledonia alone has 2,423 endemic species (compared to 353 in France); the Canary islands, that represent 1.5% of the surface of Spain, host 50% of all the endemic plant species, and French Guiana, which only accounts for 7% of global land area, is home to more than half of the animal and plant species in the world and contains about half of France’s biodiversity (29% of plants, 55% of vertebrates and 92% of insects).
The OEs are internationally recognized for their high biodiversity – they are found in all biodiversity hotspots – and the ecosystem services they provide not only are critical to local populations and economies; they also enrich the EU with a unique cultural and natural heritage as well as economic and strategic opportunities.
However OEs’ biodiversity is highly vulnerable to human induced impacts. Islands ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to threats – habitat destruction, alien invasive species, overexploitation of natural resources, pollution and now climate change – which they share with countries of the regions they find themselves in.
The OEs are crucial for biodiversity conservation globally and for the EU. They are unique in that they show a real cross section of the impacts of climate change on global biodiversity and highlight the extent of those impacts on a large variety of global ecosystems and taxonomic groups.
Photo: New Caledonia and its dependencies are important reproductive areas for the green turtle © Mila Zinkova
