Natura 2000 is the key instrument to protect biodiversity in the European Union. It is an ecological network of protected areas, set up to ensure the survival of Europe's most valuable species and habitats. Natura 2000 is based on the 1979 Bird's Directive and the 1992 Habitat's Directive.

Natura 2000 is an ecological network composed of sites designated under the Birds Directive (Special Protection Areas, SPAs) and the Habitats Directive (Sites of Community Importance, SCIs, and Special Areas of Conservation, SACs).

For each Natura 2000 site, national authorities have submitted a standard data form (SDF) that contains an extensive description of the site and its ecology. The European Topic Centre for Biological Diversity (ETC/BD), based in Paris, is responsible for validating these datasets and for creating an EU wide descriptive database .

The European database on Natura 2000 sites consists of data submitted by Member States to the European Commission. The European database is generally updated once per year, so as to take into account any updating of the content of the national databases by Member States. After validation a new EU-wide Natura 2000 database is released. However, the release of a new EU-wide database does not provide any guarantee that a particular national dataset has recently been updated.

The spatial data (borders of sites) submitted by each Member State is validated by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and linked to the descriptive data. Any problems identified during this process are brought to the attention of the concerned Member States.

There are specific terms and conditions relating to the use of downloaded boundary data within the United Kingdom. If you intend to use the UK data you must first agree to the end user licence http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-5232.

Please note that some Member States have submitted sensitive information that has been filtered out of this database. The following Member States have submitted sensitive information: Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Sweden and United Kingdom. This concerns mainly species associated to specific sites. All reference to these species has been removed from the related sites. If this sensitive information is necessary to your field of research, please contact the Member States' administrations individually. You can find a compiled list of national or regional Natura 2000 websites at the following address:

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/natura2000/db_gis/index_en.htm#sites