Ecosystems: Biodiversity, Climate, Agriculture, Markets: A New Holistic Approach from the European Union

Biodiversity is a key feature of an ecosystem, i.e. a complex network of interrelated organisms whose diversity becomes an element of resilience and good functioning of the system itself. The preservation of ecosystems and their biodiversity has become a key and transversal element of many European Union policies, which likewise figuratively take on the structure of an ecosystem. So, agricultural policy, agri-food market regulation, climate protection regulation and competition policy are intertwined. The specialty of sector’s rules does not exclude a holistic view of the production chain, the preservation of the countryside and the interactions between the different players involved, starting with the producer and ending with the consumer. This approach is reflected in the collective interests and the planet’s own health and takes on specific and recurring legal regulatory patterns of economic activities affecting biodiversity, climate, environment, nature and health. This contribution offers an interpretation of such a European “ecosystem” of legal sources, focusing on those legal provisions in which the protection of biodiversity takes on greater significance and highlighting its transversal nature in the most recent implementations of European agri-food policies.