Natura 2000 Coalition: Bridging the Gap Between Environmental Protection and Local Realities

“Sometimes the biggest victories are when something doesn’t happen”

Environmental Advocacy Under Pressure

In recent years, environmental NGOs in Romania have increasingly faced intimidation and legal harassment. Environmental groups operate in an increasingly hostile environment where governmental officials promote narratives that portray them as an obstacle to development.

For example, last year the media reported that the Ministry of Energy had initiated criminal investigations into NGOs that oppose certain projects on environmental grounds. Earlier this year, the same minister publicly encouraged national companies to take legal action against civil society groups that challenge their projects.

A report published by ActiveWatch shows that this aggressive stance towards environmental defenders is part of a broader anti-European, far-right narrative that seeks to undermine civil society and erode democratic values in Romania.

Filling a Crucial Gap

Within this challenging context, environmental NGOs continue to play a crucial role in safeguarding Romania’s natural heritage and defending our right to a clean environment. The shrinking democratic space makes the work of activists and advocates harder and riskier. And yet, many persist.

The environmental sector in Romania employs a diversity of approaches. Some activists take their grievances into the streets to protest, while others take their cases to court. Some engage in hands-on conservation work such as tree planting and habitat restoration. Others contribute scientific expertise and legal advocacy, working within institutional frameworks to influence policy and legislation.

The organisation highlighted in this article, Natura 2000 Coalition, Natura 2000 Coalition, falls into this last category. If we imagine environmental activism as a good cop–bad cop strategy, the Coalition seems to be the good cop. It has positioned itself as a technical think tank and patient negotiator, which steadily gathers data, analyses regulations, identifies inconsistencies, and proposes evidence-based solutions.

George Kudor, the Executive Director of the Coalition, explains that being the “good cop” doesn’t always make the work easier or more successful. On the contrary, working within the system that constantly ignores or deflects proposals can be especially frustrating.

Even so, George explains that the Natura 2000 Coalition fills an urgent and often overlooked gap. Romania’s environmental decision-making suffers from a chronic lack of scientific grounding, coherent legislation, and public accountability.

“It is not just pollution or deforestation. It’s public decisions made without any scientific basis, without any credible assessment of impact — socially, ecologically, or economically. And behind many of those decisions are someone’s vested interests or sheer politics.”

Even when the Coalition comes to the table with valuable insights and expertise, its efforts to influence the legislative processes are rarely welcomed by policymakers. While some public officials are competent professionals, the broader institutional culture tends to resist transparency and participation. Or worse, George says:

“At times, our presence is used as a pretext to claim the process was participatory. Nonetheless, even a small improvement to the regulation is a meaningful win, which is worth the effort.”

A Long-Term Commitment

The Coalition was established in the early 2000s to help Romania meet EU accession criteria by identifying biodiversity-rich areas that could become part of the European Natura 2000 network. At the time, the Romanian Government was falling behind on its commitments, and a group of over 50 NGOs stepped in to fill the gap. Their work was eventually recognised by the European Commission and led to the designation of many protected sites.

Since then, the Coalition has become a formal entity with 21 active member organisations, which continue to protect biodiversity and advocate for effective governance of protected areas in Romania. George Kudor describes much of their work as painstaking and often invisible:

“Sometimes the biggest victories are when something doesn’t happen—when a harmful law or a destructive development project is stopped before it starts.”

A Tool for Clarity in a Fog of Legislation

Supported by the Catalyst for Change programme in 2024, Natura 2000’s project, ‘Researching and Overseeing Environmental Legislation to Ensure the Well-Being of Communities from Protected Areas’, aims to bring clarity and logic back to environmental decision-making.

The Coalition has created a legal monitoring and analysis tool to assess Romania’s environmental legislation, which, according to George, is extremely fragmented and overly complex:

“Our tool helps us evaluate how clear a law is, how impactful it is on local communities, and whether it’s even feasible to implement.”

Each legislative item is assessed using specific criteria such as clarity, transparency, and community impact. The results are synthesised in a searchable database that benefits the Coalition, decision-makers, and other NGOs to identify gaps, overlaps, and contradictions within the legal framework. The findings from this legislation research were also shared and discussed with key stakeholders during a workshop.

Another pressing challenge addressed by the Coalition is the tension between environmental protection and local communities, especially vulnerable rural populations living within protected areas. The Natura 2000 legislation was drafted in Bucharest without meaningful consultation with these communities. The legislation sets restrictive rules that limit forestry, agriculture, construction, and development on private land. George explains that these restrictions come without adequate compensation or support, fostering resentment and misunderstanding among rural populations. This tension has led citizens to turn against environmental efforts and created fertile ground for anti-NGO propaganda.

The Coalition’s response is both pragmatic and patient. Rather than pretending the conflict doesn’t exist, they acknowledge it and work to bridge the gap by mapping out legal restrictions, evaluating their real impact on communities, and identifying possible compensatory mechanisms or legal reforms. Through these actions, Natura 2000 is changing the old narrative—transforming the idea that environmentalism and communities are at odds into a vision where protecting nature goes hand in hand with supporting local wellbeing.

Natura Coalition 2000 is a key grassroots partner in the European Union-funded Catalyst of Change: Supporting a Vibrant Civil Society in Europe project. Through this initiative, the Coalition continues its work to safeguard Romania’s natural heritage, advocating for evidence-based conservation, community-centred management of protected areas, and the effective implementation of Natura 2000 legislation. The Catalyst of Change project strengthens civil society organisations working on environmental rights, women’s rights, and anti-corruption across Croatia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania, and Slovenia, ensuring they are better equipped to promote EU values, withstand external pressures, and respond swiftly to challenges affecting civic space. Please note that all views expressed in this article are solely those of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EU.