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Natural Protected Areas in the Urban Environment are increasingly subject to the pressures caused by urban phenomena - the most obvious being the expansion of the built tissue, caused by various pressures, including real estate. In the current context of climate change, Natural Protected Areas are among the main victims of this phenomenon. Those in cities are even more affected, given the weak or non-existent connection to an integrated green system network and an ecological infrastructure network. The paper presents the most important aspects of the European legislation regarding the Natural Protected Areas of the Cities, the way in which the responsible or managing authorities are established, the approach in the urban context, the type of management and the way of monitoring the biodiversity, the activities and the types of key-visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy - climate change - land cover and use nexus is easy to grasp from a theoretical perspective; nevertheless, field data cannot easily show the intrinsic connections due to the limitations of temporal extent. Within the nexus, the concept of primary eco-energy has an operational value, relating land cover and use to the alterations of energy flows using a causal relationship. The paper links primary eco-energy to actual energy using the national territory of Romania as a case study accounting for the appropriate spatial extent. The analysis of unconventional energy, seen from the perspective of its spatial distribution, does not provide significant results in order to elucidate the relationships, but suggest possible impact on biodiversity and has a practical relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the science of ecology progressed towards a systemic approach, due to being a regulated activity, territorial planning was unable to keep up with its developments. As a consequence, the elaboration of environmental studies as a part of urban and spatial plans utilizes in Romania an outdated methodology. In parallel with it, several studies employed a new methodology, developed in accordance with the principles of systemic ecology. This paper attempts to develop an analytical framework to compare the two approaches. The results indicate that the new methodology has numerous advantages and should be used despite of not being imposed by the regulatory framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the loss of biodiversity is one of the most serious environmental threats on a global scale, requiring joint international actions for its conservation and sustainable use. Convention on Biological Diversity represents the basis of all strategies, projects and action plans aimed at protecting biodiversity. Within the Sustainable Development Strategy from 2001, European Union has set the target to stop the loss of biodiversity and restoring the habitats and natural systems by 2010. Beginning with 2010, the European strategies are covering the period 2011-2020 - the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity - for which clear targets were set, such as Aichi targets, or those included in the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2020. For Romania, protecting biodiversity is a national priority, reflected in strategic political documents, as is The fifth National Report on the Convention on Biological Diversity (2014), which presents a strategic vision on the Romanian biodiversity for the 2014-2020 horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]