The Sectoral Conference on Environment approved this Monday the six-year report on the Iberian wolf for the 2019-2024 period. The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge of the Spanish Government and Catalonia voted against the text. Castilla-La Mancha and Araba, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa abstained, while all other communities, including Navarre, voted in favor.
The document concludes that the wolf population is in "good conservation status" in Spain, which would guarantee the "control" of the species and the resumption of its hunting.
The Ministry for Ecological Transition, for its part, argued in an alternative report that the wolf is in "poor condition." It contended that the communities' report is a "unilateral assessment" and does not align with the European Commission's methodological criteria. However, the ministry is obliged to send the official report to the European Commission for final approval.
Furthermore, the organizations WWF and Ecologistas en Acción deplored that "partisan criteria were prioritized over scientific ones in the vote."
