National and regional story (Slovakia) - What is the environmental relevance of this issue?

Large carnivores are threatened throughout the world by habitat destruction, degradation and fragmentation, and legal and illegal hunting. The population of the large carnivores found in Slovakia — brown bear, wolf, and lynx — decreased dramatically worldwide during the last century.

The current treatment (legal protection and management) is thus set to ensure a sufficiently large population with good health and appropriate living conditions.

The most important laws of Slovak legislation dealing with protection and active management of protected animal species are Act No 543/2002 Coll. on Nature and landscape protection, Regulation of the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic No. 579/2008 Coll. amending Regulation of the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic No 24/2003 Coll., implementing Act No 543/2002 Coll. on Nature and landscape protection, Act No 274/2009 Coll. on Hunting, Regulation of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Slovak Republic No 344/2009 Coll., which implements the Act of Hunting. The European legislation dealing with the protection and active management of protected animal species, which is implemented by those laws in Slovakia is Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora.

In addition, the State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic is currently running a project funded by Structural Funds, the EU ‘Research and monitoring of large carnivores and wild cat in Slovakia’. Its main aim is to develop management plans (protection and management) for the populations of large carnivores and wild cat in Slovakia. The project is to design multiple-monitoring methods, which can be compared and evaluated to provide a comprehensive picture of information to determine the optimum method of protection and ecological management. These management measures (of protection) are needed to resolve the issue of valuation of damage caused by bears to livestock, hunting game, agricultural crops and property.