ARCHIVED - Iberian lynx protection scheme deprived of EU funding after 17 years

Brussels rejects the application for continuing funds as “unrealistic”

After 17 years the Life Iberlince program which aims to prevent the Iberian lynx from becoming extinct has lost its EU funding, placing in jeopardy not only the continuation of the project but perhaps also, in the longer term, the survival of the species.

Elías Bendodo, a minister in the regional government of Andalucía, confirmed this disappointing news on Tuesday, explaining that the authorities in Brussels have rejected the application for continued funding on the grounds that the proposal submitted to them was not realistic. The application was for 27 million euros over the next four years, but at the same time Sr Bendodo added that the efforts to save the Linx pardinus species will continue in Andalucía for at least another 18 months with the support of the regional government.

Andalucía leads the authorities which collaborate in the project (among the other 21 members is the Region of Murcia) and in an effort to change the EU’s mind work is already under way to present a revised application in 2020. Should this prove successful, plans would be revised to re-introduce the lynx into the Region of Murcia for the first time in 2022 in 2023, the locations chosen being in the municipalities of Lorca (Sierra del Gigante, Sierra Pericay, Lomas del Buitre-Río Luchena and Sierra de la Torrecilla) and Caravaca de la Cruz (Casa Alta-Salinas).

The lynx is known to have died out in these remote areas of Murcia at some point in the second half of the 20^th century, but the hope still remains that it can begin to prosper again as it has done in other parts of southern Spain. In fact, earlier this year a specimen was captured on video footage not far away from the north of the Region in Villena (Alicante), to where it may have roamed from Toledo.

In 2002 fewer than 100 of the animals survived in the whole of Spain, in the Doñana national park in Cádiz and Sierra Morena in Jaén, but as a result of the investment of some 100 million euros the figure has risen to almost 700.

The species is now present not only in Andalucía but also in Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura and southern Portugal, with numbers have been boosted by breeding in captivity, and the intention of the fifth consecutive four-year finance plan was to join the areas where the animal lives in the wild with “safe corridors”.

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