Europe as a model for large carnivores conservation: is the glass half empty or half full?
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2018
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At first sight, the increasing trend of many large mammal populations in EU Member States are the results from
successful application of EU environmental legislation. In this perspective a ‘rewilding’ Europe appears as a
laudable conservation goal. It has been therefore suggested that the EU model of carnivores-humans coexistence
could be of interest to several other regions of the Planet. In the present paper we critically review alleged
successes of the EU conservation policies. Our conclusions suggest that some optimistic reports should be taken
cautiously. Firstly, one should not lose sight of the heterogeneity of ‘Europe’ and the different histories and socioecological situations of the 28 Member States. Furthermore, we doubt whether the positive status of large
carnivores in Eastern Europe is attributable exclusively to EU conservation policies. Long time spans necessary
for demographic recovery in large carnivores sharply contradict the quite recent entry of these countries into the
EU. The EU model is possible owing to the unique socio-economic development that Western Europe experienced after the Second World War. Economic growth, urbanization, rural abandonment and reforestation are the
main forces behind the increase of large mammals in some areas of Western Europe. Yet this has been possible
only through a considerable input of natural resources from outside EU (food, raw materials, oil, gas etc.).
Therefore, although there are examples that could be considered good experiences, we are of the opinion that the
EU policies as a general model is unlikely to be exportable world-wide and may have negative consequences for
wildlife, even in Eastern Europe.
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Coexistence model, Exportable model, Need for stratification, EU policies effectiveness, Context-dependence
Citação
GIPPOLITI, Spartaco; BRITO, Daniel; CERFOLLI, Fulvio; FRANCO, Daniel; KRYSTUFEK, Boris; BATTISTI, Corrado. Europe as a model for large carnivores conservation: is the glass half empty or half full? Journal for Nature Conservation, Amsterdam, v. 41, p. 73-78, 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.jnc.2017.11.007. Disponível em: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1617138117303990. Acesso em: 6 jun. 2023.