Wildlife laws in Europe are failing to deliver the consistent protection promised by policymakers, according to a new peer-reviewed study from the University of Portsmouth. The research compares the European Union and the United Kingdom’s legal systems after Brexit and argues that both frameworks remain fragmented, selective and vulnerable to political pressure. Although the EU and UK have spent decades developing conservation legislation and investing billions in biodiversity programmes, the authors say the practical results reveal a persistent gap between legal ambition and conditions on the ground. Their central recommendation is not necessarily the creation of entirely new laws, but the strengthening and consistent enforcement of existing rules. They also call for wildlife legislation to recognise animals as individuals capable of experiencing suffering, rather than treating them primarily as ecological resources or instruments of human policy.
Published in the Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy, the study was conducted by environmental lawyers Dr Caroline Cox and Dr Meganne Natali of the University of Portsmouth. It examines how wildlife protection operates through overlapping statutes, regulations, conservation directives and administrative decisions in the EU and UK. In theory, these systems establish multiple layers of protection for threatened species and habitats. In practice, however, legal safeguards often depend on whether a species appears on a particular list, whether a habitat meets technical criteria or whether public authorities invoke an exemption. The researchers describe this as an appearance of harmonisation without equivalent protection in practice. Member states and local administrations may comply with the wording of legislation while applying it narrowly, creating significant differences in how wildlife is protected from one region to another.
The EU system is built around instruments such as the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive, which identify species and habitats requiring special conservation measures. These laws have played an important role in establishing protected areas and coordinating conservation across national borders. Yet the study argues that their list-based structure creates a major weakness: species not included in the relevant annexes may receive little or no meaningful protection. Even listed species can be affected by derogations, which permit authorities to depart from standard protections under specified circumstances. Such exceptions may be justified for reasons including public safety, agriculture, infrastructure development or population management. The researchers warn that when these provisions are interpreted broadly, they can transform exceptional measures into routine policy, allowing conservation obligations to be weakened through administrative decisions or political compromise.
The scale of the conservation shortfall is reflected in the EU’s own environmental assessments. The study highlights evidence that only 16 per cent of habitats protected under the Habitats Directive are currently in favourable condition. More than half of assessed bird species also have an unfavourable conservation status. These figures do not mean that European conservation law has had no successes; protected-area networks and species recovery programmes have produced important gains in some locations. They do, however, indicate that legal designation alone does not guarantee ecological recovery. A habitat may be formally protected while suffering from pollution, fragmentation, intensive agriculture, invasive species, climate change or inadequate management. In technical terms, the existence of a protected site is an input, not an outcome: effective conservation requires measurable improvement in habitat quality, population trends and ecosystem function.
The United Kingdom faces comparable problems, despite developing its own post-Brexit policy direction. Nearly one in six of more than 10,000 surveyed UK species is considered at risk of extinction, while only 14 per cent of important wildlife habitats are judged to be in good condition. The researchers identify the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 as a central component of the UK framework, but argue that its age limits its ability to address contemporary conservation threats. Modern biodiversity loss is driven by interacting pressures, including climate change, land-use intensification, chemical pollution, disease, illegal persecution and the collapse of ecological connectivity. A statute designed more than four decades ago may prohibit particular forms of harm, yet still struggle to regulate the cumulative and systemic causes of decline. Weak enforcement and low conviction rates for wildlife offences further reduce the deterrent effect of the law.
At the philosophical centre of the study is a criticism of what the authors call an anthropocentric approach to biodiversity governance. Under this model, wildlife is often valued according to the services it provides to humans, such as pollination, soil fertility, flood regulation, tourism, agricultural productivity or attractive landscapes. These ecosystem services are scientifically important, but the researchers argue that they should not be the only basis for legal protection. Animals are sentient organisms with the capacity to experience pain, distress and other forms of suffering, and this should influence how law evaluates human activity affecting them. Animal sentience is acknowledged in EU treaties and in the UK’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, but the study says that this principle has not been fully incorporated into biodiversity legislation. As a result, the same animal may be protected strongly when it is rare or economically valuable, yet treated very differently when its population increases or conflicts with human interests.
The researchers point to the European wolf as a prominent example of this instability. In 2024, the wolf’s protection status was reduced, giving EU member states greater flexibility to manage populations through measures that can include culling. The decision followed a period in which wolf numbers had increased by almost 60 per cent over the previous decade, making the species one of Europe’s most visible conservation successes. According to the study, earlier European Commission analysis did not support lowering protection levels and indicated that coexistence measures were more effective than culling in reducing livestock losses. Such measures can include improved fencing, livestock-guarding dogs, shepherding and compensation schemes. The authors argue that the downgrade illustrates how quickly legal protection can become vulnerable when a species becomes politically controversial, even when scientific evidence supports non-lethal approaches.
The study also raises concerns about the process surrounding the wolf decision, including limited public consultation, questions about the evidence considered and lobbying by agricultural and hunting interests. These concerns are significant because wildlife law depends not only on biological data but also on transparent decision-making. A scientifically credible conservation policy should explain how population estimates were generated, how uncertainty was assessed, what alternatives were examined and how likely outcomes were compared. It should also distinguish between local conflicts and continent-wide conservation status. The researchers say that weakening protection in response to political pressure risks replacing adaptive management with reactive management. In an adaptive system, authorities monitor populations, test interventions and revise decisions according to measured results. In a politically driven system, legal status may change before the effectiveness of alternative measures has been properly evaluated.
Rather than calling for a completely new legal architecture, Cox and Natali argue that governments should tighten controls on derogations, improve investigation and prosecution of wildlife crimes, and strengthen cooperation across borders. They also advocate a coexistence-based approach that treats conflict between people and wildlife as a problem requiring prevention, compensation and practical adaptation, rather than default lethal control. Integrating sentience into biodiversity law would not mean ignoring ecological science or abandoning population management where genuine risks exist. It would require decision-makers to account explicitly for the welfare consequences of interventions, to demonstrate that less harmful alternatives have been considered and to apply protections consistently. The researchers say that this combination of scientific evidence, legal accountability and ethical recognition could help bridge the gap between animal law and conservation law. Without it, they conclude, biodiversity legislation will remain both ethically incomplete and politically unstable at the moment Europe’s wildlife faces accelerating environmental change.
Subject of Research: Comparative analysis of wildlife protection legislation and its implementation in the European Union and the United Kingdom.
Article Title: Protecting Wildlife in Europe: A Comprehensive Analysis of Legislative Frameworks and Their Shortcomings
News Publication Date: 16-Jul-2026
Web References: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13880292.2025.2619363; https://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/caroline-cox; https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/persons/meganne-natali/
References: Cox, Caroline and Natali, Meganne. “Protecting Wildlife in Europe: A Comprehensive Analysis of Legislative Frameworks and Their Shortcomings.” Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy. DOI: 10.1080/13880292.2025.2619363
Keywords: wildlife conservation, European Union, United Kingdom, biodiversity law, animal sentience, wildlife protection, conservation policy, wolf protection, environmental law, wildlife crime, ecological governance, coexistence end of response.
