Biodiversity 2030: A French Perspective was the title for Technical Session II of the 69th General Assembly.
While exploring the 2030 biodiversity agenda, this session sought to explore best practice conservation examples from France, and the ways in which they could be used in a broader international setting.
Introductory Report
Pierre-François Prioux, President of the Société de Vènerie
Speakers
Nicolas Rivet, Director General of the French National Hunters Federation (FNC)
Pascal Lapebie, Scientific Director of the French National Hunters Federation (FNC)
Moderator
Emmanuel Michau, Head of French CIC Delegation
Culture and innovation were the two topics evident throughout this session.
In his presentation on Hunting with Hounds in France, Pierre-François Prioux showed the historical and cultural elements that make the practice an integral part of French hunting culture.
Hunting with hounds is reported to be a popular activity, with over 10,000 hunters and 100,000 supporters in France alone. In addition, it is evident that a wide demographic of people are engaged in the practice, with 41% of hunters aged 40 or younger, and 28% of practitioners being women.
These discussions showed the national appetite for upholding traditional aspects of hunting culture in age where enthusiasm for hunting is generally on the decline.
Contrasting this were the presentations from Nicolas Rivet and Pascal Lapebie, the Director General and Scientific Director respectively of the French National Hunters Federation (FNC).
By utilising GPS migration tracking, centralised data collection systems and AI to analyse information, the FNC have created a variety of systems that enable them to gain wildlife management insights that would otherwise not be available to them.
For example, the Aerorad system, designed to monitor bird flight direction and migration timings, revealed a high amount of movement and activity at night-time – an observation that would have been completely missed by traditional ornithologists.
Hunting in France, then, appears to be a marriage of the old and the new; celebrating traditions while moving the culture forward with innovative technologies.
The systems used by FNC in particular have great application to not only national hunting federations in other countries, but other entities working in parallel areas of conservation.
Held under the theme Biodiversity 2030: Restore – Rewild – Remind, the 69th CIC General Assembly was among the first international conferences designed to move into implementation of the recently adopted 2030 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Hosted in Paris, France the event was both a reflection back on the organisation’s heritage and a look forward to the future, with its outcomes due to be used to build the 2030 CIC Programme.
Summaries of the other Technical Sessions that took place at the General Assembly can be found below:
Biodiversity 2030: A Global Perspective
Biodiversity 2030: A Stakeholder Perspective
