A CALL for SCIENTISTS: PLEASE TAKE ACTION FOR WOLVES by 30 NOVEMBER 2024.

Novembre 2024, Mobilisation contre la révision du statut du loup. PETITION: Sacrifier le loup s’inscrit dans une réaction antiécologique profonde.

L’Union européenne vient d’accueillir favorablement, le 25 septembre, la proposition faite en 2023 par la présidente de la Commission européenne, Ursula von der Leyen, de réviser le statut de protection des loups en Europe, sans doute pour calmer un monde agricole. Nous appelons expressément les élus français et européens au maintien du classement du loup en espèce strictement protégée, car il est plus que jamais vital de sauvegarder et d’améliorer les dispositifs réglementaires permettant de lutter contre l’appauvrissement de la biosphère. Il est temps de faire la paix avec la nature.

May 2024 . Declaration promoted by    European Scientific Associations and signed by scientists ( 738+ signatures at 21.11.2024)  criticising  the European decision-makers for a series of decisions that undermine the EU’s environmental agenda and international obligations, resulting in an overall attack on the Green Deal, on nature, and the future of EU citizens.

The European Green Deal, in its original form, was poised to set ambitious steps for tackling these crises and addressing key societal challenges. However, the Green Deal is presently going through a continuous path of weakening, as elements of it are being lost or replaced in the policy process. As scientists, we are particularly concerned about a series of unjustified, poorly informed and rushed deregulations which fail to align with the dire need for transformative changes toward sustainability

The European Union proposal to lower the protection status of the wolf is clearly a politically motivated U-turn away from an ambitious and science-based approach to species and ecosystems conservation. Indeed, the Parties to the Convention have rejected similar proposals to de-list the wolf in the Bern Convention meetings in 2006, 2018 and 2022 based on the absence of scientific evidence to alter this species’ protection status. There is still no scientific justification for it now, as shown also in the Commission’s in-depth assessment of the situation of the wolf in the EU published in December 2023.

Dear Ambassadors , we strongly urge you to reject the European Commission proposal to lower the protection status of the wolf under the Bern Convention at

your upcoming meeting. This will send a clear signal that the EU takes its domestic and international commitments to protect and restore biodiversity seriously, on the basis of science-based policy making. The Commission’s proposal for the Council Decision to lower the protection status of the wolf is clearly a politically motivated U-turn.