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ENVIRONMENT

KEY POINTS: Why is Sweden planning to cull half its wolf population?

Sweden's government has announced that it will allow a major wolf cull this year, with hunters licensed to kill as many as half of the estimated 400 animals in the country. What is going on?

KEY POINTS: Why is Sweden planning to cull half its wolf population?
A wolf pair spotted in Linderöåsen near Kristianstad in Skåne. Photo: Länstyrelsen Skåne

How many wolves are there in Sweden? 

Wolves were extinct in Sweden by the mid-1880s, but a few wolves came over the Finnish border in the 1980s, reestablishing a population.  

There are currently 480 wolves living in an estimated 40 packs between Sweden and Norway, with the vast majority — about 400 — in central Sweden. 

How many wolves should there be? 

The Swedish parliament voted in 2013, however, for the population to be kept at between 170 to 270 individuals, with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency then reporting to the EU that Sweden would aim to keep the population at about 270 individuals to meet the EU’s Habitats Directive. 

In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency was commissioned by the government to update the analysis,  and make a new assessment of the reference value for the wolf’s population size. It then ruled in a report the population should be maintained at about 300 individuals in order to ensure a “favourable conservation status and to be viable in the long term”. 

What’s changed now? 

Sweden’s right-wing opposition last week voted that the target number should be reduced to 170 individuals, right at the bottom of the range agreed under EU laws. With the Moderate, Christian Democrat, Centre, and Sweden Democrats all voting in favour, the statement won a majority of MPs.

“Based on the premise that the Scandinavian wolf population should not consist of more than 230 individuals, Sweden should take responsibility for its part and thus be in the lower range of the reference value,” the Environment and Agriculture Committee wrote in a statement.

Why is it a political issue? 

Wolf culling is an almost totemic issue for many people who live in the Swedish countryside, with farmers often complaining about wolves killing livestock, and hunters wanting higher numbers of licenses to be issued to kill wolves. 

Opponents of high wolf culls complain of an irrational varghat, or “wolf hate” among country people, and point to the fact that farmers in countries such as Spain manage to coexist with a much higher wolf population. 

So what has the government done? 

Even though the ruling Social Democrats voted against the opposition’s proposal, Rural Affairs Minister Anna-Caren Sätherberg agreed that the wolf population needed to be culled more heavily than in recent years. As a result, the government has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to once again reassess how many wolves there should be in the country. 

“We see that the wolf population is growing every year and with this cull, we want to ensure that we can get down to the goal set by parliament,” Sätherberg told the public broadcaster SVT.

Sweden would still meet its EU obligations on protecting endangered species, she added, although she said she understood country people “who live where wolves are, who feel social anxiety, and those who have livestock and have been affected”.

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ENVIRONMENT

Sweden’s climate watchdog slams government for ‘misleading’ net zero claims

Sweden's climate watchdog has delivered a scathing judgement on the country's new climate plan, saying the government's claims that it points the way to net zero in 2045 are "misleading" and "not based in fact".

Sweden's climate watchdog slams government for 'misleading' net zero claims

Under Sweden’s Climate Law, the Swedish Climate Policy Council is tasked with giving a verdict once a year on whether Sweden’s current climate policy puts the country on track to reach its national and EU emissions goals for 2030, and its long-term emissions goals for 2045. 

In this year’s verdict, the council accused the government of bringing in policies which actually increase emissions, pushing responsibility for meeting Sweden’s climate goals to whichever governments gets into power after the 2026 election. 

“Taken together, the climate action plan takes us down an unnecessarily risky path for Sweden’s climate transition,” the council wrote in a press release announcing the report.

The climate policy action plan presented on December 21st last year, it complained, “does not live up to the requirements of the Climate Act and lacks concreteness”, containing “neither emissions forecasts nor timelines for climate policy.” 

“We have reviewed the government’s action plan and find that the claim that it sets the conditions to get all the way to net zero emissions in 2045 is misleading and not based in fact,”, the council’s vice chairman Björn Sandén said.

Daniel Helldén, spokesperson for Sweden’s Green Party, said that the report showed that the government did not have a real climate plan. 

“This is damaging for Sweden, for businesses, for jobs, for growth and above all for the climate issue. It’s going to be an enormous amount of work to try and turn back round the boat that they sunk,” he said. 

He accused the government of actively trying to deceive the public. 

“They’re dumping everything on us and hoping to get away with it. The climate policy council says that the plan is misleading and not based in fact and of course the climate minister is trying to say they believe in it anyway. I’d say that they’re lying.” 

The opposition Social Democrats and the Left Party called on the government to issue a new, updated climate plan, along with a new budget which puts Sweden’s emissions curve back on track.  

“Now we can only hope that the government takes the criticism to heart and returns to the parliament with an updated climate action plan and budgets that do not increase emissions,” the party’s climate policy spokesperson, Anna-Caren Sätherberg, said. 

“That we have a government that is breaking the law is simply insane,” complained Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar. “The government must now change direction. A total demolition like this cannot be allowed to go unnoticed.”

In its recommendations, the council calls on the government to quickly decide on and then implement a new package of measures to reduce emissions from the transport sector and machinery segment, to draw up a plan for increased absorption of carbon dioxide in forests, giving the government a deadline of June 30th 2024 to set out how Sweden’s EU commitments can be achieved.

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