Biodiversity loss, aviation research, giant telescopes…

This week in Europe in brief: Ministers endorse targets for tackling biodiversity loss, aviation research panel, giant telescopes and more.

Ministers endorse targets for tackling biodiversity loss

At a 21 June Council meeting in Luxembourg, EU environment ministers endorsed the Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 proposed last month by the Commission. The ministers approved the strategy’s six targets for the next decade, which include restoring 15 per cent of degraded ecosystems by 2020 and identifying alien species to control or eradicate. They also called for scientists and policy makers to work more closely together to assess progress.