23
Nov
2022
Watch
Protection of livestock farming and large carnivores in Europe (debate)
Mr President, after those very clear words of Commissioner Lenarčič – thank you very much for them – I would like to address those who want to introduce changes in the Habitats Directive or its annexes. The amendments are not justified from both a conservative and a legal point of view. The Habitat Directive does not envisage any rule or automatic mechanism according to which as soon as a species achieves favourable conservation status, its protection status would be lowered. Because if you applied that logic, the species would decline rapidly again, and all the effort to protect it and all the public money spent on that would have to start from scratch again. And this doesn’t seem very logical. Some species are subject to a very high level of human-caused mortality, especially because of poaching. So colleagues, as we know, and we just heard it, the existing possibility under Article 16 of the Habitats Directive to manage wolf and bear populations is necessary. The Commission guidelines need to be clarified, Commissioner, and this is also in our resolution, so please vote for it with no amendments. It includes most of our expectations.