Sustancias empleadas en el envenenamiento de fauna silvestremarco legal y jurisprudencia

Abstract

Slowing down the loss of biodiversity, which is currently in its sixth massive extinction, is one of the most difficult challenges that Humanity faces nowadays. In order to do so, the United Nations has devised the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, an opportunity for countries and their societies to take a new path. Spain is one of the European countries with the largest biodiversity; however, this natural abundance is highly threatened by several causes, including the illegal use of poisoned baits, a deeply-rooted historical practice. In this study, we review the legal framework and the substances used in wildlife poisoning, as well as the jurisprudence derived from the application of this legal framework during the 1992-2020 period, with the aim of providing conclusions structured as proposals through which to eradicate this practice, thus protecting the natural heritage and biodiversity in Spain. To this end, we studied several parameters obtained from the analysis of criminal and contentious-administrative sentences compiled in previous studies. Our findings suggest that the range of substances that are used is very wide, although carbamates are the most used group of substances in the sentences that were analyzed. There is also an uneven distribution of the number of sentences and of the most used substances among the different autonomous communities. In conclusion, we can point out that despite the extensive legal framework on the use of poisons, their use to kill wildlife has not ceased, and much work remains to be done to put an end to this bloody practice.