BIOPRESS project aimed at providing the EU-user community with quantitative information on how changes in land cover and land use has affected the environment and biodiversity in Europe. Consistent and coherent sets of historical (1950 – 1990 – 2000) land cover change information in and around circa one-hundred Natura 2000 sites located from the boreal to the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic to the continental regions of Europe have been produced. These land cover change statistics were subsequently converted into quantitative measures of pressures on biodiversity. GISAT has been sub-contracted to prepare 1950/1990 land cover change DB. For 75 sites covering entire Europe the archived aerial photos were collected, orthorectified, mosaicked and interpreted. Detailed land cover change analysis resulted as the final product of this task.