National Strategy for the Conservation of Biodiversity.

The National Strategy for the Conservation of Biodiversity is a cross-sectoral national strategy of Hungary for the period 2015-2020. Its main objective is to integrate the aspects of preserving biodiversity into cross-sectoral policies, strategies and programmes and in their implementation.
One of the more specific strategy areas under the document is reserving the country’s natural areas and values, and improving their conservation status; creating the conditions for the comprehensive implementation of the European Union’s Birds and Habitats Directives; improving the condition of protected natural areas and ensuring satisfactory environmental management; improving the environmental conditions of the most problematic species of community importance, as well as the most endangered species; developing a knowledge base serving the successful and effective preservation of species in need of protection and of community importance, as well as habitat types of community importance; improving public awareness and judgement of biodiversity, natural values of community significance, as well as protected natural areas via knowledge dissemination, attitude shaping, and interpretation. Also, it also targets to maintain and restore landscape diversity, green infrastructure, and ecosystem services, including by preserving landscape diversity and ecological landscape potential and integrating aspects serving the preservation and development of biological and landscape diversity into comprehensive and relevant sectoral policies using the toolset of green infrastructure and ecosystem services, with special regard to territorial organisation.
Further, the Strategy prioritizes increasing the role of agriculture in the conservation of biodiversity, including by preservation, development and sustainable use of genetic resources in agriculture; increasing the diversity of the genetic resources used in agriculture; promoting a varied, mosaic-patterned agriculture in view of the objective of preserving biological diversity as well as environmental and landscape protection, and the due utilisation of domestic and local biological foundations (and especially the varied animal and plant genetic resources in farming); maximising the total area of land under sustainable farming via the diversity-related measures of the common agricultural policy, thus maintaining or increasing agricultural and, consequently, general biodiversity. In addition, it provides for sustainable forestry and wildlife management; protection and sustainable usage of water resources including through increasing the total size of forests managed via nature-friendly forestry methods; effective enforcement of biodiversity considerations during the planning of the total forested area; identifying the role of waters in watery and water-dependent on-land ecosystems; dissemination and coordination of water management as well as logical and frugal water consumption; decreasing water pollution in order to preserve biodiversity and maintain the ecosystem services of micro and macro-level life forms dependent on water.
In the area of disaster preparedness, the document aims for fighting invasive non-indigenous species by curbing the communities of invasive non-indigenous species that harm the natural or near-natural ecosystem; as well as preventing potentially dangerous invasive species from entering and settling in Hungary.
According to the Strategy, it is primarily the government that will provide the institutional and personnel requirements for the required interventions, by sharing the work amongst ministries. The Government will manage the execution of state tasks related to the preservation of biodiversity, as well as define and coordinate the related activities of ministries and other organisations directly reporting to the Government. All social stakeholders – and specifically local municipalities, the economic sector, and residents – will be involved in the work.