ARCHIVED - Hunters given boost within Murcia Regional Government with direct representation
Murcia's Regional Hunting and River Fishing Office will now report directly to the General Secretary for the Environment
The latest reshuffle of Murcia's Regional Government has seen the controversial practice of hunting gain ground and become more important within the authority after the responsibilities of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment were separated.
Until now, hunting and fishing issues were determined by the Department of Forestry Policy, attached to the Directorate General of Natural Environment. But they will have more prominence with the newly created Regional Ministry of Environment, taken over by Juan María Vázquez last week.
Details of the "reorganisation of the management departments of each ministry that underwent changes after the government crisis" were published in the Official Gazette of the Region of Murcia on Wednesday January 25.
The decree states that Vázquez will be in charge of the environment, forestry policy, hunting and river fishing and wildlife protection.
However, in a significant change in the organisational structure, the Regional Hunting and River Fishing Office will now have the rank of Sub-Directorate General and will report directly to the General Secretary for the Environment, a position that will be held by Víctor Martínez.
While Murcia's Regional Hunting Federation celebrated the news on Wednesday, Ecologists in Action blasted hunting's increased visibility and weight within the government as "an electioneering measure" to "capture votes" in a sector linked to "the political right".
The environmental group, which left the Regional Advisory Council of Hunting in 2019 for "being useless", questioned why the government intends to give "relevance to an activity that is mortally wounded by the lack of generational replacement and the high cost of the activity".
Image: Archive
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