The dataset on Natura 2000 sites was created in 2014 by Cogea for the European Marine Observation and Data Network. It is entirely based on GIS Data from the European Environmental Agency's (EEA), plus selected EEA tabular data joined to the feature attributes, as well as a calculation by Cogea of marine and coastal location of features.Natura 2000 is an ecological network composed of sites designated under the Birds Directive (Special Protection Areas, SPAs) and the Habitats Directive (Sites of Community Importance, SCIs, and Special Areas of Conservation, SACs).The dataset covers the whole EU.The whole dataset is available for download on the EMODnet Human Activities portal. In the webmap the EEA dataset has been filtered by Cogea to show only (i) marine sites, i.e. sites with a “marine area percentage” higher than 0 (as calculated by the EEA) and (ii) sites that – even if not identified as marine by the EEA – intersect the EEA coastline or that are within a distance of 1 km from the coastline (using a 1 km inner buffer from the EEA coastline). In both cases the COAST_MAR field value=1. The EEA coastline dataset is available at https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/eea-coastline-for-analysis-1.Compared with the previous version, this version includes the update 'Natura 2000 End 2017', by the EEA in 2018; new fields, from the EEA’s descriptive data, have been added to the Natura 2000 dataset: Organisation name, Organisation Email, Management Plan, Link to Management Plan.For further information please visit the EEA's website.