About the legal protection of the brown bear in Republic Slovenia and its violations and some legal views of protection of the animals
| Autor | Vladko Began |
| Cargo | Slovene Attorney. Animal Rights Defender at the Society for the Liberation of Animals and their Rights (Slovenia) |
| Páginas | 71-86 |
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The brown bear (Ursus arctos L.) is a representative of the class of mammals (Mammalia), row of beasts (Carnivora) and the family of bears (Ursidae) and it is the most spread specie of the brown bears. In the past
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it has populated the area of the entire Europe (except the big islands such as Ireland, Island, Corsic and Sardinia), today it has vanished from the most of the areas. With the enhancement of human population also came to a loss of the adequate habitats because of the shrinking of the woods of intensive farming and intensive hunt of this animal. Today there are 50.000 bears living across the Europe (approximately 14.000 out of Russia), on a territory of 2,5 million km2.
In Slovenia the population of the brown bear is representing the most western part of the population of the brown bear in Middle Europe. On this area the bear specie has preserved because of the suitable life environment, the wide combined woods of High Karst. By official evaluation of the Institute for the woods of Slovenia there are approximately 500 to 700 bears living, but many experts think that there are much less.
The bear is basically a very timid animal and prefers to avoid human contact. It never stalks the human or hunts it for food, it only attacks him if it feels endangered. For the extremely good smelling and hearing abilities the bear normally avoids human so the encounterings with the bear are rare, also on the areas where it is relatively frequent.
2.1. The brown bear who also belongs to the great beasts is an endangered specie and so, for its existence is in danger, a protected specie and it does not belong among hunting species. According to Slovene Rule article about the classification of endangered vegetal and animal species into the red list, the brown bear is among the endangered species and it has a short label E. It is characteristic for this category of threatening that existence of this specie on the area of Republic Slovenia in future is not possible if the causes of the threat are going to continue, because the number of this specie has reduced to a critical level. Protection of the brown bear is set by the Slovene Article about the free living protected animal species, which has been issued on the basis of the Law of preservation of nature, and it brings to Slovene legal order some
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guideline clauses of the Council 92/43/EGS (May 21st 1992) about the preservation of natural habitats and free living animal and vegetal species, which Slovenia, for its entrance to the European Union (EU) in 2004 had had to transfer into the internal legislation. The protection of the bears is also set by the Convention about the protection of free living European flora and fauna and their vital environment (Bern convention), which Slovenia has transferred into its internal legal order by ratification in 1999. Besides the mentioned legal acts the situation of the brown bear is also processed by other Slovene legal acts such as the Resolution of National program of protection of the environment 2005-2012, the Law about the woods, the Law about deer and hunting, and specially important Rule article about the seizure of subjects of the brown bear specie from nature and already mentioned the Rule article about the classification of endangered animal and vegetal species into the red list, and also some international acts such as Alpine convention - Protocol about the implementation of the Alpine convention from 1991 about the protection of nature and regulation of landscape.
2.2. The main characteristic of Slovene Article about the protected free living animal species which is the main rule regarding protection of protected animal species in Slovenia, is that it is forbidden to consciously hunt, poison, execute, take away from nature, hunt, capture or upset the animals of protected species. There are certain exceptions to this rule (for ex. labours tat are performed due to the rules...) and special exceptions that specify when the intervention into the population of the protected animal specie is exceptionally allowed. Interventions into this population are allowed strictly exceptionally and in specified cases under strict conditions. Execution, take away from nature, capturing, upsetting, poisoning or hunting the animal is only allowed, by determination of Slovene ministry for the environment and space or Agency of Republic Slovenia for environment, if there is no other option and these handlings are not hurting the maintenance of positive condition of the population for: ex. insuring the benefits of protection of animal and vegetal species and maintaining habitat types; prevention of serious damage, specially on crops, livestock, woods,...; insuring health and safety to the people, or for any other necessary reasons of
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predomination of public interests which can also be social or economic, and for beneficial consequences of fundamental meaning for the environment; selective and limited take away of the animals from nature for balancing the size of the population with the environment, under highly secured conditions and in limited number;... Similar, but not he same, interventions to protected animal species are specified in already mentioned directive of the Council 92/43/EGS, as also the Bern convention.
3.1. Although the brown bear is an endangered specie and for that protected by many regulations and although interventions into the population of the brown bear with killing is possible only exceptionally and under precisely determined conditions, the government orders to kill a bigger number of the bears each year. Over 400 bears were killed in the last few years, only in years 2006 and 2007 the Minister for the environment and space ordered to kill 100 bears each year for the reason of regulating the size of the population with the environment.
3.2 The mentioned killing, which is based on the Rule article about the take away of the subjects of the specie of the brown bear (Ursus arctos) from nature is illegal and contradictory to the Slovene constitution and therefore there were filed two initiatives for the judgement if the mentioned Rule article is legal, to the Slovene constitutional court, and also a part of the Article about protected free living species, which is the basis for this rule article. The court has accepted the initiative of the killing in year 2006 (the initiator has the status of society which works in the public interest) and will process it with priority, but for the initiative of the killing in year 2007 there were no decisions yet. The mentioned killing is also contradictory to the also already mentioned directive of the European union, and because of that there was also filed a complaint to the General directory for the environment of European committee, which accepted the complaint and now runs a
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procedure against Slovenia. The complaint to the mentioned directory was filed for both years, 2006 and 2007. In the following there are introduced in short, a few most important violations of both initiatives that were filed to the Slovene constitutional court.
3.3. With the change of the Article about free living animal species there was made an entry of the case of intervention into the population of the brown bear, when for a reason of selective and limited take away of the animals from nature because of balancing the size of the population with the environment, under strictly controlled conditions and in limited number. Selective and...
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