The Standing Committee of the Bern Convention voted on Tuesday in favour of an EU proposal to adapt the protection status of the wolf from ‘strictly protected' to ‘protected' but the battle for the protection of the wolf might still not be lost.
The Standing Committee is the Council of Europe’s international treaty on nature conservation. As previously reported, the change is set to take effect in three months.
The European Commission claimed in its proposal that the change will give additional flexibility to Member States in managing their local wolf populations. At the same time, as the wolf will remain a protected species, Member States' conservation and management measures will still need to achieve and maintain favourable conservation status.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the vote as “Important news for our rural communities and farmers”. The vote was seen as personal victory for her as her pony Dolly had reportedly been killed by a wolf in 2022.
According to the protocol from the vote, which was published on Friday, the EU representative asked the Contracting Parties to vote on its proposal. The proposal has been controversial in the EU and EU Member States were divided on it. In September, the Commission proposal was adopted by a qualified majority of Member States.
This changed to a unanimous EU vote on Tuesday. The EU on behalf of its 27 Member States and Andorra, Armenia, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Norway, North Macedonia, Serbia, Switzerland and Ukraine supported the amendment. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Monaco, Montenegro and the United Kingdom opposed the amendment. Tunisia and Türkiye abstained.
With a majority of 38 votes in favour, the required two-thirds majority of the Contracting Parties was reached and the proposed amendment was adopted. The change will enter into force on 7 March 2025, three months after the formal adoption. The Commission will propose a targeted legislative amendment to this effect, which will need to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council.
Several animal rights organisations condemned the decision, accusing it of being more about politics than scientific reasoning and data. "The wolf is unfortunately the latest political pawn, a victim of misinformation,” commented Léa Badoz, Wildlife Programme Officer at Eurogroup for Animals. “Downgrading protection will not solve the challenges of coexistence nor help farmers.”
In Sweden, the decision threatens the already extremely fragile, inbred and threatened Swedish wolf population which has dropped by almost 20 percent in just a year to 375 individuals. In 2011, because of the hunting, the Commission launched an infringement procedure against Sweden but it was never resolved. Now the procedure will be cancelled.
The government announced already in October that it intends to decide to gradually half the wolf population to 170 animals claiming that it should be the new reference value for preserving the population.
”For Sweden, the decision will make no difference since the country has culled wolves since 2010 in a manner blatantly disregarding their higher protection status," commented Misha Istratov, wildlife and biodiversity ambassador. "This makes it extra curious that Sweden has been one of the main propagators for a lowered protection status.”
