New this year
The new community policy for agriculture began in 2023, which was called the National Strategy for CAP 2023-2027. Among the many innovations of this new programming, there is the destination of at least a third of all the funding provided for interventions for the protection and improvement of the agricultural environment. All this offers potential possibilities for a concrete redevelopment of wildlife habitats in agriculture as interventions are carried out throughout the peninsula, with huge funding and a five-year program of interventions. To underline the importance of all this, Federcaccia has been committed since the beginning of the year, through its Studies and Research Office, to promoting and disseminating the main environmental intervention actions envisaged in the new CAP. In particular, meetings are promoted at a regional level, with the local leaders of FIdC and their respective representatives at Territorial Hunting Areas and Alpine Areas with the aim of both involving hunters to take an active interest in environmental policies in their territory and to specifically follow the notices of the CAP and Rural Development of greatest interest for wildlife habitats of local interest.
ATC and alpine areas
To date, various regional and local sections of Federcaccia have already taken action in organizing online and in-person meetings (the main ones being Abruzzo, Basilicata, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Tuscany and Veneto) and further insights have been held with some of these for specific projects. The main intent is to actively involve the ATCs and CAs so that they can be an active part of these interventions also thanks to the allocation of part of their funding to incentivize farmers to follow the CAP measures more favorable to wildlife of hunting interest. Unfortunately, there is also a notable difference in the possibility of applying CAP environmental interventions at a geographical level as the Regions have adhered differently in choosing the environmental measures to adopt. For example, there are rural development measures (CSR) of high wildlife interest, such as disposable winter covers, the conversion of crops to grassland, twenty-year land set-aside, buffer strips, etc., which are only planned in a few regions Italian. Other Regions have in fact chosen not to finance them, allocating the funds to measures of mild environmental interest.
The need for active participation
This last aspect is certainly due to a lack of attention and sensitivity on the part of some regional administrations to the environmental problems of their agricultural territory but also to a modest representation of the hunting world at the local consultation tables of these policies. We therefore increasingly reiterate the importance of active participation of hunters' representatives in choices that concern the territory of their region. Many strategic decisions are made at a local level also with the discussion of the parties and stakeholders. Federcaccia, also through its Studies and Research Office, will therefore continue to promote constant discussions with local political and administrative leaders on environmental agricultural matters and on the front of active collaboration with agricultural trade associations in the implementation of local projects. Only in this way will hunters have the opportunity to be promptly updated on the topic and also carry forward their own proposals (FIDC Faunal and Agro-Environmental Studies and Research Office).