NGO Sends Open Letter to Romania’s Environment Minister to Stop Killing Bears

Agent Green, the most active NGO to protect the bear population in Romania, sends an open letter to Romania’s Environment Minister, Tanczos Barna, to stop the killing of bears in the country.

It is not their first action to stop the mass killings of these forest animals. One of their former action was to collect bear rights for the bear population in Romania. Official sources say they are above 6,000, while activists say the number of bears is way lower. From this perspective, killing bears is not a justified action.

Mr. Tanczos Barna, Minister,

Your intent to favor the trophy hunting industry at the expense of the brown bear population is evident throughout the entire order. From the very first page, even from the introduction, I could see the contradiction between the study’s objectives and the available public information. Officially, before the Revolution in 1988, 7,880 bears lived in Romania. Three decades followed as the population declined, including due to poaching, poisoning, and proposed and approved kill quotas (1,419 bears legally killed between 1990-1996) for damage reduction, a fact noted in the introduction of the draft order. The recorded population of the bear fell sharply in just a few years to 5500 specimens, at the level of 1996. Accepting these official data invites repeating the mistakes made 33 years ago that led to the current situation and makes a utopia out of your project of order.

Public Letter from Agent Green to Romania’s Minister of Environment

As a principle, Agent Green advocates coexistence and co-adaptation with bears by addressing the cause of problems, not the effect. The organization does not support the lethal measure in any form. Habitual bears who cause trouble result from bad public policy and are not to blame. In the activists’ opinion, it is not morally right for them to be killed, and the environment ministry must ensure a life of dignity for them in sanctuaries created and maintained by the Romanian state. According to the open letter, the ministry must urgently repair the bear’s reputation, which contributed to the persecution through bad policies and alarmist statements of bad faith. In future public policies, the ministry must consider climate change, which negatively impacts and accelerates the brown bear population.

Agent Green recommends that the measures of the environment ministry firmly impose co-adaptation and co-existence with brown bears in Romania. Co-adaptation and co-existence must occur if bears continue to exist, so people must be willing to share the habitat and tolerate the low level of risk they represent.

Agent Green believes that state authorities must establish specific conservation objectives based on environmental, social and economic objectives – the basis for current and timely information about species. Decision-making transparency and predictability are needed to facilitate collaboration between stakeholders in setting the objectives, measures and proposed actions. Only in this way is it possible to facilitate the maintenance of a balanced social climate and an ethical and non-discretionary framework in the brown bear population management system in Romania.

Not only Agent Green is active in the bear protection campaigns in Romania. Famous British producer Charlie Ottley appeared in campaigns for ‘bear rights’ and advocated for the companies using bear images on their logos or labels to contribute to bear protection in the country.

Even so, the subject is controversial in the country where bears are known for random episodes of attacking households. The Environment Minister hasn’t come up with a reply yet.