Court Overturns La Gomera’s Hunting Decree
The High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) has confirmed the absolute nullity of a decree issued by the President of La Gomera’s Island Council, Casimiro Curbelo, which established controlled hunting zones on the island for a five-year period in 2022. The Administrative Court has dismissed the appeal lodged by the Island Council and fully upholds the sentence issued in August 2024 by the Administrative Court Number 3 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Lack of Technical Foundation
The judicial ruling affects the decree of 19 September 2022, published in the Official Bulletin of the Canary Islands (BOC) on 22 September of that year. Through this decree, the island corporation extended the hunting regime without having a Technical Hunting Plan, an instrument required by law to support this type of special regulation. The TSJC emphasises that Canary Islands hunting legislation does not provide for the extension of controlled hunting zones, as this is a regime that requires an updated technical evaluation.
In fact, the court notes that the validity of management instruments is five years and that, after this period, new plans based on recent censuses and parameters must be approved. This is due to the natural variation of game species and factors such as disease, climate, or accumulated hunting pressure. “The reason is biological and technical,” states the sentence: once the validity period has expired, hunting censuses and parameters lose their validity.
Procedural Shortcomings and Restrictions
Furthermore, the court highlights that the decree was approved without basic procedural guarantees. There was no record of a formal initiation agreement, nor the required technical and legal reports, and interested parties were not consulted. Reports from the Insular Council and the regional ministry were also omitted, steps considered essential for approving game management instruments.
The sentence also notes that the decree not only organised the territory but introduced direct restrictions on hunting. These included access conditions linked to local roots (being born or resident for more than ten years) and a special regime managed by a collaborating entity, Hunters Agana, with quotas and requirements not expressly provided for by law. For the court, this type of limitation requires technical and legal support which the Island Council lacked when approving the rule.
Return to Common Hunting Regime
The sentence, which can be appealed before the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court, returns the reality of hunting in La Gomera to its previous situation. According to the appellants, the island’s land, with the sole exception of natural areas with specific hunting regulations, has been from 2022 until today “free land”—that is, land subject to the common hunting regime. Therefore, in their view, to hunt on this land only a hunting licence, insurance, and firearms permit were and are required.
They also maintain that, following this sentence, all hunters, without exception, are entitled to a refund of the fees paid for controlled hunting cards, as well as the fee for participation in the notarial draw, from 2022 to the present, plus legal interest. Furthermore, they consider the actions carried out by the association Hunters Agana and its game wardens from 2022, the date of approval of the annulled decree, until now to be null and void.
Concurrently, this collaborating entity of the La Gomera Island Council will, following this annulment, have no competence whatsoever in managing hunting on the island. “As controlled hunting no longer exists, there cannot be an entity in charge of managing controlled hunting, of which the wardens are its employees,” state the appellants. Fines imposed by the Canary Islands Police on hunters who did not possess the controlled hunting card, required by the now-annulled island decree, will also be nullified.
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