Since the 1990s, scientific concerns for habitat and ecosystem fragmentation and landscape and ecological connectivity have entered the political arena, as can be seen in the Global Strategy for Biodiversity (1992), the Habitat Directive (1992), the Pan-European Strategy of Biological and Landscape Diversity (1995) and the Biodiversity Strategy of the European Community (1998). Finally, the European Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment (2011/42/EC) has fostered the incorporation of sound environmental principles and criteria, such as ecological connectivity, at strategic levels for many types of plans and programs, including regional, urban, land use and infrastructural plans.