The government has handed Parliament its proposal to ease the rules on hunting large carnivores in Finland. On Thursday, the cabinet approved the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s plan for amending the Hunting Act.
"The proposed changes to the Hunting Act are part of the efforts towards a more balanced large carnivore policy, where hunting for population management [purposes] is possible," Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sari Essayah (CD) said in a ministry press release.
"The government's proposal strengthens the game management's means of justifying large carnivore population management permit decisions more firmly than before. We will also continue to actively lobby for the wolf's protection status to be lowered under the EU Nature Directive," she added.
Last month, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC) sharply criticised the plan, pointing out that wolves are highly endangered and are strictly protected by Annex IV of the EU Habitats Directive.
Ministry cites EU case law
According to the government bill, the ministry would be authorised to set targets for population management hunting of large carnivores, based on individual species and management areas.
This amendment seeks to take into account the case law of both the Court of Justice of the EU and the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland, the ministry said.
"Taking into account economic, social and cultural requirements is included in the Habitats Directive, but this perspective is hardly reflected in case law. However, two other paragraphs of the same article, which emphasise nature conservation, have been considered...The aim of the legislative amendment is to also include consideration of these objectives through stock management plans," Essayah said.
Looser bear hunting rules this summer
In future, the ministry could set reference values for the conservation status of each species, which would be used to assess the impact of any deviation on maintaining or achieving a favourable conservation status, so that the species would be secured in Finland in the long term.
The Finnish Wildlife Agency would still be responsible for case-by-case consideration of any possible exemptions.
It would still have to demonstrate that there is no other satisfactory solution to achieve the objective besides conservation hunting and that any deviation would not affect the favourable conservation level.
Assuming the bill is approved – as the four governing parties have a solid majority in Parliament – the amendments would enter into force next month.
However the new bear regulation would take effect at the beginning of July, ahead of the hunting season that begins on 20 August.
The new rules on hunting wolves and lynx are to be finalised next autumn before entering into force in November.
Last year, courts revoked nearly all exceptional permits granted by the Finnish Wildlife Agency for lynx hunting after a flurry of complaints.