The regime of compensation to agricultural producers whose herds are attacked by the Iberian wolf has been revised to strengthen the indemnities and eligibility criteria, a revision that the Government considers more fair and balanced in protecting the species.
The update to the regime, announced by the Ministries of the Environment and Energy and of Agriculture and the Sea, aims to be a “reinforcement of the balance between the conservation of the species and the sustainability of the holdings in territories where the wolf is present,” with “adjustments to the rules for compensation for damages, with the objective of making the system fairer, clearer and more suited to the realities of the holdings.”
According to the joint communiqué from the two ministries, among the main changes to compensation for producers is the elimination of the progressive reduction of the indemnity value, that is, the amount to be indemnified is no longer progressively reduced as the total number of attacks accumulates over each calendar year.
The previous regime provided a reduction to 90% of the amount payable from the 3rd attack, to 70% from the 8th attack, and to 50% from the 12th and up to the 15th, the limit to be compensated.
The disappearance of animals as a result of attacks by the Iberian wolf also becomes eligible for indemnities, “based on the technical assessment of the elements of evidence and on the validation by the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF).”
“The automatic exclusion of indemnity in cases of animals aged less than one month is also eliminated, which adjusts the regime to the real conditions of farming under free-range grazing,” adds the communiqué.
The Government argues that, with the changes promoted, “it reinforces the confidence of producers and improves the effectiveness of the conservation regime, promoting a more balanced coexistence between economic activity, territorial management and biodiversity protection.”
