A platform of nine organizations Catalonia’s animal lovers and ecologists are committed to improving wolf populations It’s a proposal in society that the agricultural union Unió de Pagesos is opposed to, while the Young Farmers’ Association (JARC) is reluctant.
Organizations Libera!, Signatus, Depana, Galanthus, Adda, WWF Barcelona, Llobu, Ecologistas en Acción and Greenpeace have created a platform with the main goal of promoting the recovery and conservation of wolf populations in Catalonia.
Members of the platform prepared a joint manifesto. They demand several “urgent” measures for the rescue of the wolf in Catalonia and for “social recognition of its fundamental ecological role, compatible with the defense of a living rural world”.specified in the text.
Among other measures, they demand from the Generalitat a monitoring and support program for the recovery of the species in Catalonia, the development of a social communication and environmental education program to disseminate the wolf’s ecological role, and the “ecological role of the wolf”. benefits to societythus avoiding the ignorance and social rejection of the species”.
Other claimed measures are to promote the coexistence of the wolf with extensive traditional livestock breeding, to prepare a study on the benefits of the presence of the wolf, and to support the primary activities affected by the presence of the animal, with mechanisms of regulatory, economic and technical nature.
On February 4, the State Natural Heritage Commission agreed to include the wolf on the list of wild species under special protection, and Added to the Catalog of Endangered Native Wild AnimalsIt was approved on September 20 of this year.
Wolves seen in Catalonia since 2000
Several wolves have been seen in Catalonia since 2000.Coming from the Italian-French cities via the Pyrenees caused some problems, most recently one was killed a week ago in Girona for allegedly attacking a herd of goats.
According to the Generalitat, p.At least four all-male wolves have been spotted, the last of which was in the l’Albera (Girona) Nature Park.
“We are aware that the wolf will not come back without taking into account the rural population and their lifestyles,” the platform’s proponents state in the manifesto.
“The depopulation of the rural environment and the disappearance of the peasantry – they add – is a serious condition that causes regional imbalances, loss of biodiverse agroforest areas, overcrowding in urban areas, and greater reliance on fossil fuels for the import of all consumer goods into metropolitan areas.
According to supporters of the livestock platform, it should be management that articulates mechanisms that allow the prevention of conflicts between protecting biodiversity, tackling climate change, and maintaining and improving the rural economy.
Skepticism or rejection among villagers
Joan Guitart, regional coordinator of Unió de Pagesos in Alt Pirineu, told EFE that those who want the wolf to be reintroduced, They do not make a living from farming, just as they do not set foot on the land throughout their lives,” he said.
“If we want bears and wolves, we will eventually have no villagers”thought Guitart, to add that in communities where wolf populations are established, damage to cattle is significant.
Lluís Viladrich, JARC’s (Young Farmers and Farmers of Catalonia) sectoral fauna head, told Efe that in the proposal to bring the wolf back to life, “the problem is not the animals, but the protection measures that the administration has added to its environment that do not keep agricultural and livestock farms alive”.
He thought, “If we were to gag that it was vital that the area not be desolate, the villagers should stay there and make a living from agriculture and animal husbandry.”