The Global Journal of Animal Law

Protecting wolves in anthropocentric landscapes: some reflections on the entanglement of wolves, humans, and laws

Gustav Stenseke Arup — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0200

As an important factor in the return of the wolves across the continent, the legal protection of wolves in Europe has often been heralded as a success. The reappearance of wolves in landscapes from which they have been extinct for a long time has however resulted in new challenges for this legal protection. As the populations have increased, so have the conflicts with, as well as between, humans. By picturing the legal protection of wolves as co-produced by wolves, humans, laws, and other bodies in the landscape, this article shows how aversions towards wolves merge with larger political discourses that creep up on the wolves in the laws as well as in the forests. As discussed in this article, it is not always certain that stricter laws lead to stronger protection of the wolves. Having situated the laws within the landscapes where they are supposed to function, the paper concludes by discussing some challenges this poses for animal law and visions of a post-anthropocentric legal system in general. The article focuses specifically on the wolf conflicts in Sweden and its neighboring countries. The analysis of these local conflicts might serve as an example of the complexities inherent in these kinds of conflicts concerning large carnivores in general.

Socio-legal perspectives on consensus building in Finnish large carnivore policies

Outi Ratamäki, Taru Peltola — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Recently, civil society organisations’ litigation has seemed to put a stop to the hunting of large carnivores in Finland, which has been a regular practice. In light of an updated interpretation of the European Union Habitats Directive provided by the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court, the Finnish Wildlife Agency, which issues the permits for large carnivore hunting, has had to re-evaluate its reasoning for permitting large carnivore hunting. At the same time, critical voices opposing large carnivore hunting have increased both in academia and the general public. While conservationist arguments received support from the courts, the balance of power between stakeholders is shifting, potentially resulting in more inclusive policy making. However, consensus building has become even more difficult since the group of powerful stakeholders involved is widening. In this article we look at conflict management efforts regarding wolf policies, one of the most intensive and persistent environmental conflicts in Finland, in light of consensus building theories. The article is based on observations regarding the processes of management planning, stakeholder relations and media discussions, analysed through hermeneutic interpretation. We ask what changes large carnivore management has recently undergone, what repercussions such changes have, and what future challenges are emerging for conflict management. In addition to the formal wolf management planning, we focus on what is happening on the outskirts of the state-led stakeholder processes to reveal the criticism large carnivore policies are generating.

Estrellita and the possibility of nature-based animal rights

Eva Bernet Kempers — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0200

In its judgement of 23 January 2022, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador concluded that individual animals are subjects of rights under the constitutional provision that recognises the rights of nature. Building upon a number of earlier cases in which rivers and mangroves had been recognised as rights-holders, it set out a framework for how animal rights should be understood in the Ecuadorian context. Through its conceptualization of the rights of animals as a dimension of nature’s rights, it bridged the tensions between the more systemic approach to environmental protection on the one hand, and the more individualist approach of animal law on the other hand. This article will discuss the Estrellita judgement, taking it as a starting point to investigate the possibility of ‘nature-based animal rights’ as an alternative to the common understanding of animal rights as being grounded in the properties of individual beings. This investigation will then lead to a proposal for systemically integrating animal rights within the broader normative framework of rights of nature, reconciling the tensions between the ecosystem and the individual.