This week European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed to the EU Member States to downgrade the protection status of the wolf in the Bern Convention, despite the lack of scientific evidence to support such a significant move, says the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

The WWF has called on the EU Member States to reject this proposal.

The Council of Europe’s Bern Convention is the world’s oldest convention in the field of nature conservation and has been in force since 1979.

It is seen as the original piece of international law that led to the creation of the EU Habitats Directive, the cornerstone of the EU’s conservation work.

No former Commission President has ever proposed to decrease the ambition level of a protected threatened species in an international forum.

Sabien Leemans.

The move represents a politically motivated U-turn as only last November, the EU rejected Switzerland’s attempt to downgrade the protection status of the wolf, arguing that based on the latest data, the wolf had not reached a favourable conservation status in most EU Member States.

This change of heart is even more unwarranted given that the proposal for a Council decision does not provide any scientific evidence that the wolf population’s status has changed significantly within a year.

This announcement also flies in the face of public opinion, as it is in stark contrast to the recently published survey on rural communities’ perceptions about co-existence with large carnivores. Its results show that 68% of rural inhabitants think that wolves should be strictly protected and over two-thirds (72%) agree that they have a right to co-exist.

Introducing a change to the Bern Convention requires a Council decision and therefore a qualified majority of EU Member States backing the Commission’s proposal.

Earlier in 2023, 12 Ministers of Environment wrote to Commissioner Sinkevicius with a clear position against the lowering of the protection status of the wolf.

Read also – Ursula von der Leyen: return of wolf packs to EU regions “a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans”

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