The Cyprus Environmental Movement has accused ELAM of attempting to criminalise environmental organisations and activists, in a statement condemning a parliamentary initiative by the party’s MPs.
The movement’s statement follows an ELAM-tabled agenda item for an “assessment of the impact” of environmental groups’ activities, ahead of a session of parliament’s Environment Committee on Wednesday, according to conservation group CABS, which has urged MPs to reject the item.
Coordinated operations between gamekeepers, police and NGOs have underpinned Cyprus’s anti-poaching enforcement in recent years. Last autumn, complaints filed by CABS led to the conviction of 55 poachers and the seizure of 1,621 limesticks, 139 nets and 89 lure devices, with 1,286 live birds freed as a result. In recent weeks, joint operations caught six poachers in the act, resulting in the immediate seizure of firearms and illegal trapping equipment.
The movement said the initiative was not an isolated move but part of a wider European far-right trend that seeks to separate “protection of nature” from the people defending it, branding environmental defenders as enemies.
The group said ELAM was serving narrow political interests and courting the sympathy of poachers and lawbreakers, while undermining green policies and justifying illegal practices such as the trapping of ambelopoulia songbirds.
The movement described the move as part of a “fascist mentality of demonisation and silencing,” saying it was not confined to Cyprus and that similar tactics were being used by other far-right groupings elsewhere in Europe to weaken environmental movements.
The group called on all democratic forces in society, including parties, trade unions and active citizens, to oppose what it called an anti-democratic slide, saying environmental activism was “the voice of the Earth itself” rather than a crime.
The movement said it would not allow parliamentary seats to be used as tools to intimidate civil society, and that freedom of action, criticism and advocacy were non-negotiable rights in a democracy.
