Who could have predicted, at the start of 2020, the course that the year has taken until now. The CORONA-crisis has tested our health systems, familial, societal and EU-wide solidarity and moved us towards new ways of interacting socially and working. The crisis has highlighted once again, the links between ecosystems, our consumption and our health. Whether this over the long term affects our behaviour and government policy remains to be seen. The recent launch of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030 which precedes the international negotiations on the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, China, provides a means of assessing, considering and discussing new approaches to our relation with wildlife.

In this context, the EU Platform has continued to work over the first half of 2020, most of that time remotely. An early regional workshop in January in Salzburg Austria allowed several days of face-to-face exchange on measures to protect livestock. The EU Platform brought an international perspective and examples of protection financing from different countries. But we also learned much from the shepherds and other practitioners present, who described the very practical aspects of livestock protection in the Alps. Our Plenary Meeting in June was online but nonetheless allowed us to stay in touch and to catch up on and discuss recent policy developments and exchange experiences, this time particularly on tourism practices such as bear watching which might affect coexistence with large carnivores. I hope the newsletter provides some interesting reading and we wish our readers all the best in these difficult times.

Jurgen Tack

Scientific Director of the European Landowners’ Organization (ELO)

Co-chair of the EU Platform on Coexistence between People and Large Carnivores