Large carnivores and the EU LIFE programme

Most large carnivore populations have increased in recent decades in Europe. Along with the adoption of the EU Habitats Directive in 1992, the EU launched a funding program entirely dedicated to environment, nature protection and climate action, the European LIFE programme. Here, we explore the investment of this programme in large carnivore conservation across Europe, from its implementation in 1992 to 2020 (28 years), with respect to budgets, species considered, economic factors and the geographical distribution of the projects. A total of 153 projects have directly or indirectly targeted large carnivores, with a total budget of ca. 338.2M€ (EU contribution >194.1M€). Despite the transboundary character of most large carnivore populations, only 5.8% of projects worked across national borders. Large carnivores did not receive equal attention within the programme, and EU Member States from Southern Europe accumulated 77.7% of the projects. The region of Abruzzo (Italy) has been granted with the highest number of projects (n=28), followed by Castilla y León (Spain, 16 projects). At national level, the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) did not correlate with the number of LIFE projects granted, but the proportion of the GDP invested in the protection of biodiversity and landscapes (positively). However, at the level of European regions (NUTS 2), those regions with lower average per capita GDP were more frequently granted with LIFE projects. We discuss several factors affecting the distribution of projects across Europe, and we make recommendations for future investments in maximizing large carnivore conservation under this program.