AIW: Abruzzo Park, good news for the Marsican bear or just bureaucratic intentions enunciated by the Lazio Region?
In the last days of 2013, two press releases appeared in the press, relating to the Marsicano Brown Bear, or rather news that, on the one hand, the Abruzzo National Park and the Lazio Region on the other, they decided to disclose. A profound diversity, however, distinguished them, although they were both only an enunciation of intentions, while still nothing concrete has been revealed on both sides (not to mention the silence of the Abruzzo Region, and of the desaparecida Molise Region: they too are public bodies of the PATOM ). To summarize them: a press release of the Park which, finally with a practical sense, puts forward proposals for concrete interventions and asks the public bodies most directly concerned (those of the PATOM, precisely: Ministry of the Environment and Regions) to finance them. Interventions directly useful for the protection of this animal, so that with the arrival of spring we can start with projects and measures useful to change things, or to avoid the decline of the population (a decline which has also recently become evident with the observation of a bear). and we hope that now the usual Park will not be proposed there to protect it, as we are trying to do in the Ernici Mountains of Lazio: chasing the bears fleeing from the Abruzzo Park to place other Parks around them!).
Concrete proposals, therefore, which do honor to the extraordinary Commissioner Giuseppe Rossi, now in imminent termination of his mandate (with the hope that he can then continue as President for another five years, and can therefore carry on what is proposed today): improve the guardian service ; establish anti-poison dog units (which, to be honest, could be avoided by making sure that no one has an interest in poisoning the territory); have funds to be able to acquire the concession of municipal land - and to compensate the municipalities for failed cuts - in areas of high value to be allocated to integral reserves for the bear; the resumption of a serious food campaign by sowing suitable land, "involving farmers and hunting associations"; strengthen control over tourist movements in "certain seasons and along routes that interfere with the presence of the bear"; collaborations with breeders to healthily monitor domestic livestock; improve the compensation system for wildlife damage, also with the establishment of "a special flock of the Park or public flock to be entrusted to local breeders". In practice, what the AIW has been proposing for years; unheard by all, at least until today!
The other news concerns a Deliberation of the Regional Council of Lazio: with a premise long pages and pages (seen, seen, seen, etc.) that is almost ridiculous if the defense of the bear was not a serious matter. In total 13 thick pages in order not to establish, in very Italian style, anything concrete; the usual word-of-mouth: only proposals for mandates, committees, identification of managerial positions (who will be the lucky ones?), guidelines, consultations, coordination, etc .; all abstruse ideas that will give birth to meetings, conferences, agreements, approval of plans, and other various bureaucratic proposals; that is, chatter and printed paper to no end! The only concrete things foreseen, but questionable, are: the “reduction of the impacts linked to human activities” (that is, hot water: how, where and what does it refer to? Mystery!); approval of the Contiguous Area of the Park (that is, restrictions on local inhabitants and hunters!); the “reduction of the risk of collisions with motor vehicles” (which never occurred in Lazio!); regulation of forest roads (already provided for by law and in any way of municipal competence); strengthening of surveillance and, last but not least, the usual proposal for a Park for the Ernici Mountains (because the enemy of the bear for some is always and in any case the hunter)! And all this "without any charge for the Lazio Region". That is, even the little that has been foreseen, in the end it will not be possible to realize precisely due to the lack of the necessary funds!
Only one non-good news is highlighted: neither of the two initiatives (Park and Lazio Region) speaks of studies, research and censuses: and this is real good news! We are in winter. The bears should have all gone into hibernation by now, thus solving their problems on their own. We just have to hope that with the arrival of spring also the funds of the Ministry of the Environment, and perhaps of the Regions, will arrive in support of the aforementioned proposals of the Park Authority.
Murialdo, January 2, 2014
Frank Zunino
AIW General Secretary