Hunting, conservation, and EU policy in Brussels

According to CIC, the organization took part in talks in Brussels concerning the direction of nature and hunting policy across Europe. A combined gathering of FACE and ELO was held at the European Parliament. Thierry de l’Escaille, who leads ELO and serves as a CIC vice-president, and Arno Wimpffen, CIC’s director general, joined a session examining a stress test of the Birds and Habitats Directives. Member of the European Parliament Juan Ignacio Zoido chaired the meeting, and EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall sat on the panel.

That stress test is intended to judge how well the two Directives perform and how workable they are. Roughly 8,500 members of the public submitted comments, and 92 percent of them regarded the Directives as very valuable. Outcomes are anticipated before the year closes.

The same theme carried into the FACE General Assembly, where hunting dogs, recovery of small game stocks, and conservation steps that have succeeded were also addressed. The program ended with a panel of Arno Wimpffen of CIC, Gray Thornton of WSF, and Dr Chris Comer of the SCI Foundation, who discussed hunting and conservation priorities and difficulties on the world stage.