Wolves, bears and wild boars are dividing up the map of Spain and the real battle is between the rural world and the cities

Wolves, bears, vultures, cormorants, wild boars, lynxes… When, a few months ago, Christian Gortázar, professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, was asked about Spanish wildlife, his words were tremendously accurate: “the problem is everywhere.”

And dozens of species are being redistributed throughout traditional territory while rural and urban society confront each other over something extremely basic: what the hell nature is and what it is for.

Why are we talking about this? Complaints from the agricultural sector about wildlife have been with us for years. However, in recent months (and spurred by the African swine fever crisis) the “mismanagement” framework has been gaining weight in public debate. But the truth is that the idea that “there are many animals and no one controls them” is not innocent.

It is, in reality, a ‘discursive umbrella’: an idea-force that brings together very heterogeneous demands (the cuts from the future CAP, the fears derived from the Mercosur treatybureaucratic burdens, rising costs, rural identity, etc.). That is the main reason why the political debate does not fit with the scientific one, but not the only one.

How to survive the end of the field. Talking about Spain being emptied today is almost obvious: 62% of Spanish municipalities has lost population since the nineties. In Castilla y León and Asturias that figure is around 85%. For the urban population it is only a sociological question, for the rural population it is an existential question.

And in that context, the wolf has expanded to the southeast, the bear has doubled its area of ​​influence and the wild boar has sneaked into towns and neighborhoods (causing a complete economic and health earthquake). Regardless of the real effect of conservation measures on the rural world, it is easy for the feeling of general abandonment to curdle into an aversion to this way of seeing the countryside.

A legitimate debate. From an ecological point of view, species recovery makes sense (as long as it is done properly). Degraded ecosystems lose the ability to adapt and become much more fragile: recovering species is the simplest and most cost-effective strategy.

But we must not forget that these species return to a world completely different from the one they left and that the gaps they left are now occupied by “de facto powers” and realities historically established in the countryside and that still survive.

And those powers They maintain that the ‘intervention’ of cities In their world it is counterproductive. The debate, as I say, is legitimate (and even healthy).

And then? The real problem is not the discussion about whether the resources allocated to recovery measures would be better invested in other policies. The problem is that in the public debate the data and arguments are missing; and everything has become a partisan quagmire that is very difficult to manage.

But the wildlife is still there. And the farmers too. In fact, all the actors who have taken us here are still there. The fundamental question is whether there is a future that can be understood as a solution.

Image | Nancy Stapler

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