Yesterday, a delegation of representatives of Lombard hunting associations was received by the President of the Lombardy Region Attilio Fontana. They attended the meeting Lorenzo Bertacchi, Giancarlo Bosio, Massimo Zanardelli and Carlo Bravo, who thank the President for having dedicated over an hour to the delicate problems that worry Lombard hunters and the difficult relationship with DG Agriculture. The lack of confrontation with the hunting world and the systematic underestimation of the technical and legal proposals and suggestions thus led to the adoption of acts unacceptable for hunters and proved to be politically harmful.
Unfortunately, from September to today it had to register a real retreat of relations, with a General Management that seemed to entrench itself more in the defense of its own mistakes and choices than in the search for solutions and so not only did the situation complained of in September, when resignations and a renewal of competences were requested, but is actually worsened, with the elaboration of acts that undermine the future of hunting in Lombardy. Just what the associations feared.
Now on the table there are fundamental acts for the hunting programming which will have immediate effects (such as the calendar for next season) and which will sanction the fate of hunting in Lombardy for the next ten years, such as the Hunting Wildlife Plan, the Guidelines for the management of Alpine Galliformes and regulation of the keeping and ringing of breeding calls. The President has well grasped the problematic nature of decisions presented only when largely irreversible, already accompanied by ISPRA opinions which, however, are the result of what has been prepared by the Offices. Although it may be difficult to put the bar back to starboard, only by returning to a constructive and close comparison can one think of programming and profitably plan the hunt for the coming months and years in the short time remaining in the current regional legislature.
And politics must re-appropriate its dual role: of guiding the work of officials and managers and, at the same time, of intermediary in the dialogue between the Offices and the representatives of the hunting associations. In this sense, concrete signals are expected in a very short time frame and we are confident that the personal interest of the President will finally be able to make a change. (Source FEDERCACCIA LOMBARDY)