Poland shows how criticism of hunting can become politically effective

In the heart of Europe, Poland is fighting against a hunting law from the era of the People's Republic.

An alliance around Olga Tokarczuk and Agnieszka Holland now wants to force through with 100’000 signatures what the hobby hunting lobby has been blocking for decades: safety for residents, an end to the trophy industry, and the right to a forest without gunshots. Poland is thus becoming a case study in hunting-critical politics across Europe — including Switzerland.

A Ghost of the People's Republic in the Polish Forest

Poland has been a democracy for over three decades. Its hunting law, however, dates in its core from 1995 and is in its fundamentals a direct legacy of the Polish People's Republic (PRL). Wildlife is still treated as state property, the country is divided into hunting districts from border to border, and the quasi-governmental Polish hobby hunting association (PZŁ) administers these districts like a self-service store. Landowners who have a moral objection to the killing of animals have virtually no recourse under current law. An alliance of scientists, artists, and environmentalists now wants to change what politicians have been sitting out.

At the forefront of the movement stand two of Poland's most prominent voices: Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk, whose novel “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” made the senseless killing of animals by hobby hunters a defining theme for an entire generation, and director Agnieszka Holland, who adapted the material in 2017 as the eco-thriller “Spoor,” presenting it at the Berlinale and winning the Silver Bear. Magdalena Gałkiewicz of the Polish Green Party sums up the thrust of the initiative: the current system is anachronistic and contradicts everything that is known today about animal welfare and ecology.

100’000 Signatures on Paper: Democracy as a Stress Test

To bypass the veto power of the hobby hunting lobby in parliament, the initiators are relying on the “civil legislative initiative.” The process is as demanding as it sounds: first, 1’000 handwritten signatures must be collected just to register the committee. After that, there are exactly three months to gather another 99’000 signatures. In the age of digital petitions, Poland sticks to ink and paper. The advantage: such a citizens’ initiative has no “discontinuity.” If it is not passed during the current legislative term, it automatically carries over to the next one. It is precisely this persistence that the hobby hunting association fears.

700 Meters Instead of 150: When Wind Turbines Need More Distance Than Rifles

Perhaps the most scandalous aspect of the current legal situation does not even concern the animals, but the residents. Today, hobby hunters in Poland are permitted to fire high-powered rifles from as little as 150 meters away from residential buildings. The initiative calls for this distance to be raised to 700 meters, measured from any structure, including schools and kindergartens. Gałkiewicz states the absurdity very clearly: wind turbines in Poland must keep a distance of 700 meters because they generate noise, yet a lethal firearm may be discharged 150 meters from a child’s bedroom window. Over the past ten years, 28 people in Poland have died as a result of hunting-related incidents. A large majority of the population — around 89 percent — demands mandatory medical and psychological testing for all hobby hunters.

An End to the “Killing Industry”

The initiative puts particular pressure on the commercial hobby hunting industry in Poland. Estimates suggest that around 12’000 foreign trophy hunters travel to Poland every year. Some sources put the number of paying shooting guests at as many as 25’000. The State Forests operate their own online shops where killing appointments can be purchased like concert tickets. Poland thus becomes the backdrop for an industry that, according to critics, treats the country “like a third-world nation” where anything can be shot as long as the price is right. The reform seeks to dry up this market. The legal basis for doing so is strikingly simple: under the constitution, wild animals belong to the state, not to private foreign-currency earners or international guests with a taste for antlers.

The Right to a Forest Without Gunshots

The second central demand of the initiative concerns the right to a forest free from hobby hunting. A decree issued by Stalinist head of state Bolesław Bierut in 1952 had de facto nationalized wildlife and obligated private landowners to tolerate hobby hunters on their property. To this day, private individuals may opt out on grounds of conscience, but legal entities such as foundations, conservation organizations, or forest kindergartens do not have this right. They must watch as deer, wild boar, and birds are shot right outside their windows. The initiative aims to put an end to this anachronistic compulsion. NGOs and municipalities should be able to permanently exclude their land from hobby hunting districts.

In doing so, the Polish reform draws directly on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. In the case of Herrmann v. Germany (2012), the ECHR ruled that landowners cannot be compelled to silently tolerate hobby hunting on their property if it conflicts with their ethical convictions. The legal framework underpinning the Polish citizens’ initiative is therefore not some national quirk, but a matter of European human rights law. Those who criticize hobby hunting are not arguing “against nature,” but in favor of property rights, freedom of conscience, and proportionality.

The “Invisible Network” in the Sejm

The road is rocky, because operating within the Polish parliament is what activists describe as an “invisible network.” Only a handful of lawmakers openly declare their support for hobby hunting, yet the association’s influence reaches considerably further. The situation has grown more volatile since President Karol Nawrocki appointed Marcin Możdżonek, president of the National Hobby Hunting Council, as his advisor on climate and the environment — of all people. This effectively guarantees a presidential veto against any serious reform. Poland is witnessing an open conflict between a reform-minded civil society and a lobby that has been firmly entrenched in the state apparatus since the communist era.

Baiting, Night Vision, Trophies: What the Initiative Actually Wants to Ban

For all the force of its demands, the initiative is not about a blanket ban on hobby hunting, but about taming a practice that has spun out of control. Specifically, the initiative seeks to ban the luring of wildlife with bait, prohibit nighttime shooting with thermal imaging optics, and require a scientific review of the list of huntable species. Today, hobby hunting plans in Poland are negotiated, as Gałkiewicz mockingly puts it, “between the lord of the manor, the bailiff, and the parish priest” — that is, in closed sessions between hobby hunters and foresters. In the future, these plans are to be subject to public consultation and scientific oversight. In other words: Poland's forests should once again belong to all citizens, not just to the 127,000 members of the hobby hunting association.

What Switzerland Can Learn from Poland

The Polish case is of particular interest to Switzerland because it shows how criticism of hunting can translate into legal effectiveness. The Polish campaign did not prevail through nature romanticism or moral appeals, but through a precise legal argument: the protection of residents, the protection of children, the protection of property, and freedom of conscience. This very shift from a folklore debate to a fundamental rights issue is also what the Swiss hobby hunting lobby fears most.

The Polish reform of 2018, which banned minors from hobby hunting, did not arise from a moral outcry, but from a concrete legal contradiction between the animal protection law of 1997 and the older hunting law. The pattern repeats itself: those who cleanly identify legal gaps put the hobby hunting lobby on the defensive. In Switzerland, the legal situation varies considerably from canton to canton, which requires a clear distinction between patent hunting and district hunting. The lever of “property rights and fundamental rights” works the same way in both countries. Where a private individual, a foundation, or a municipality wishes to resist hobby hunting on their own land, this is not a matter of taste, but a question of proportionality.

Poland as a Stress Test for All of Europe

The citizens’ initiative is more than a national reform project. It is a litmus test for the question of whether organized civil society can outmaneuver an entrenched hobby hunting lobby in an EU member state. In recent years, Poland has already demonstrated several times that such shifts are possible: from the ban on fur farming to first reform steps against hobby hunting to the removal of five bird species from the hunting list. If commercial trophy hobby hunting is now also eliminated, the protective buffer zone around residential buildings is increased fivefold, and municipalities regain the right to declare their forests shooting-free, a piece of the hobby hunting mentality will crumble — a mentality that also shapes the debate in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

The message from Warsaw is clear: hobby hunting is not a law of nature or a cultural constant. It is a political arrangement that can be changed when 100,000 citizens put their names to it.