European Union moves to defang stringent EU measures designed to protect and conserve the bloc’s wolf populations may have given farmers cause to whistle but environmentalists are bristling. Yesterday, a majority of member state ambassadors proposed easing the applicable protection rules that are currently part of the European Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. While a binding ruling is not expected until December, EU ministers face an official vote on the proposal in the coming weeks.
In many member states, irate farmers have been complaining increasingly about attacks on their livestock by wolf packs raiding agricultural lands from adjacent woods and fields. The issue was first highlighted two years ago when a pony belonging to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was killed by a wolf.
The European Commission welcomed yesterday’s initial vote, declaring “adapting” the protection status to be “an important step to address the challenges posed by increasing wolf populations while keeping the overall objective to achieve and maintain a favourable conservation status for the species.”
Experts and environmental groups estimate that as many as 19,000 wolves are to be found across the 27 EU member countries, with large populations believed to roam in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania and Spain. Although a “strictly protected” species in most of Europe, wolf numbers are reckoned to have shot up by 25% in the last decade.
Under the new proposal being backed by the EU, the status of wolves would be downgraded from “strictly protected” to “protected”. This would permit the introduction of more measures to keep them at bay from farmers and the population.
Just last month, Dutch parents were warned by local authorities not to take young children to a forest area near Utrecht following two close encounter incidents with a wolf that had displayed “atypical and worrying” behaviour.
EU environmental rules and regulations have faced increasing challenges in recent years as populist and far-right parties argue they were based on the concerns of urban elites unfamiliar with the realities of rural life.
Leading farm lobbyist Copa-Cogeca said it was glad EU institutions were listening to the needs of farmers and rural dwellers, noting that an affirmative decision would offer them “greater peace of mind” in confronting pressures “from those who often don’t have to deal with the consequences of attacks”.
However, the Eurogroup for Animals NGO took a decidedly different view, accusing EU members of ignoring “citizens’ calls and science”. The NGO was adamant that facilitating “culling sends a dramatic message on the future of conservation and coexistence.”
Herbert Dorfmann MEP, EPP Group Spokesman in the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee described the decision as a major breakthrough “in tackling the sharp increase in wolf populations, which pose a growing threat to pastoral farming, tourism, and rural communities across Europe.” Even if no longer endangered, Dorfman maintained that wolves remain “a particular threat” to livestock grazing, a form of agriculture, he claimed, that is being pushed back more and more by wolf activity.
A yes vote would allow member states “more freedom to implement effective management plans”, Alexander Bernhuber MEP, the EPP Group leader on the Environment Committee, stressed. His colleague Peter Liese, EPP spokesman on the Environment Committee, allowed that while “some protective measures” might still be needed to safeguard livestock, yesterday’s decision offers greater legal clarity while empowering “rural communities to take the necessary steps to protect themselves.”
