Podgorica, (MINA) – The biggest threats to biodiversity of Montenegro are destroying of species and their habitats, urbanization, deforestation and climate change, the MINA News Agency’s collocutors stated, adding that it was high time to stop further nature’s degradation.

When asked which ecosystems and species are of special significance for protection in Montenegro, the Environmental Protection Agency replied that those are the protected species, adding that updating the list of the protected species is in progress, and that their number will be much higher than it is now.

The Agency also stated that they have been working on strengthening legal infrastructure that would secure more efficient protection measures.

When asked what the biggest threats to biodiversity are, the Agency stated that those are destroying species and their habitats, urbanization, deforestation, chemical pollution in agriculture, illegal landfills, invasive species and climate change.

Milica Kandic from the NGO Parks Dinarides, responding to the question of how authorities can give their contribution to the preservation of biodiversity in the context of climate change, said that it is necessary to determine climate change sensitive zones.

“To define and implement climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, to monitor and evaluate the planned measures”, Kandic further explains.

She remarked that according to the sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Mediterranean ecosystems are considered a critical zone, among the most endangered by the climate change impacts.