OSLO (Reuters) - Europe is doing poorly in safeguarding a range of wildlife from Iberian lynxes to Arctic lemmings and has to do more to reach a goal of halting a loss of species diversity by 2010, an international report said.

Lacking the spectacular range of nature of South America's Amazonian rainforest or Africa's plains, Europe often underrated its own diversity, from polar bears to storks, from Alpine meadows to Irish peat bogs, it said.

The report, commissioned by the U.N. Environment Program and Council of Europe ahead of a species diversity conference in Croatia on February 22-24, said Europe was faring badly on eight of nine counts set in 2003 to halt a loss of biodiversity by 2010.

Global warming, urbanization and pollution were all threats for extinctions on a densely-populated continent. Europeans, for instance, paved over an area three times the size of Luxembourg with roads, car parks, shopping centers and other buildings in the 1990s alone.

"It is clear that achieving the 2010 biodiversity target in Europe requires not only a redoubling of efforts in implementing the objectives...but more specifically, a firm commitment by the parties to act," the report said.

It gave Europe a green light on one measure -- parks. About 17 percent of Europe's land area was in 18,000 nature sites, it said. The figure exceeds a global average of about 12 percent.

The report gave a red light to eight of nine areas, such as ensuring the diversity of farmland or forests, halting the introduction of alien species, promoting better funding, education and monitoring of biodiversity.

HALT SPECIES LOSS

Fifty-three European nations agreed in 2003 to "halt the loss of biodiversity" on the continent by 2010 -- tougher than a global goal set in 2002 of a "significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss" by 2010.

"Europe is probably doing better than most continents in protecting diversity but is not yet doing enough," Jeff McNeely, chief scientist at the World Conservation Union (IUCN), told Reuters.

One IUCN plan launched in 2004 is to create a "green corridor," perhaps 10-15 km (6-9 miles) wide, along the route of the Iron Curtain that divided the Soviet bloc from Western Europe from the Arctic to the Black Sea.

Slowing the arrival of invasive species -- such as crop-eating beetles or seeds from other parts of the world -- was becoming harder with the expansion of the European Union to 25 nations from 15.

"The border controls that used to be available are now only at the port of entry," McNeely said.

Ladislav Miko, a director at the European Commission, said that Europe did relatively well when species were under threat of extinction.

"But some other species which have been more common before, like farmland birds, are declining," he told Reuters.

The report also said Europe should try to preserve patchworks of small farms with a diversity of crops, rather than allowing bigger farms likely to grow single crops on bigger fields with no hedgerows that are home to many species.

Miko said that one key was to ensure that protected areas were connected so that habitats did not get isolated. "Most conservation work does not make sense unless it's done in a pan-European context," he said.

The Croatia talks, in Lake Plitvice, are a prelude to a meeting by environment ministers from around the world in Curitiba, Brazil, on March 20-31 on biodiversity loss.

Some scientists say that global warming could wipe out thousands of species in coming decades, perhaps the worst spate since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.