VLK: The Slovak Forest Protectors Who Took Their Fight to the EU's Top Court

Registered in 1993, the WOLF Forest Protection Movement (Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK) set up Central Europe's first private nature reserve, the 21.24-hectare Vlčia (Wolf) reserve in the Čergov Mountains, buying the land plot by plot through its 'Buy Your Own Tree' fundraising campaign backed by supporters from 19 countries. VLK has never had the forest logged since taking ownership in 1998, and has since developed further private reserves aimed at keeping Slovak old-growth forest free of logging, hunting, and pesticides. The group's legal challenges over brown bear hunting permits produced two landmark Grand Chamber rulings by the Court of Justice of the EU (2011's C-240/09 and 2016's C-243/15) that expanded environmental groups' right to court access across the whole European Union under the Aarhus Convention.