The hunting season and the law 157
In a few days the hunt opens. The appointment finds a country beset by other, more urgent concerns, but Italians, despite the extremely difficult crisis of recent weeks, continue to be passionate about the subject. This has been the case for many years, since the environment and the protection of fauna have become priority objects of attention for public opinion. These particularly sensitive antennas when discussing hunting are good, for the objective relevance of the question, but they also contain a risk: the risk that the debate will be reduced to a sort of "religious war" between defenders and enemies of hunting " without ifs and buts". Among those who invoke atavistic traditions - man was a hunter even before becoming a gatherer and then a farmer - see a "right" in hunting, and how many - it must be said: more and more numerous - condemn hunting on an ethical level, considering it a practice that is now incompatible with the cultural evolution of the human species.
The writer has never taken up a rifle, not even a shotgun, nor does he recognize himself in the “abolitionist” positions of those who would like to prohibit hunting. And while recognizing full legitimacy and interest in these disputes, however, as environmentalists we set ourselves a different priority: to regulate it by putting into practice the constitutional principle that identifies in the fauna heritage a superior good that the State has the duty to preserve. Reconciling hunting activities with the need to protect fauna was the goal of Law 157 of '92: an excellent law that allowed Italy to keep up with EU legislation and remains an indispensable point of reference. This law must be defended by updating some marginal aspects but strictly safeguarding its inspiration. It must be defended from recurrent attempts to dismantle it, the last of the PDL which in the Senate had proposed an unlikely and harmful deregulation of hunting. And it must also be defended by too many unilateral initiatives by various Regions (not all - it must be said - governed by the center-right ...) which in the last few months have launched hunting calendars in violation of the protection rules established by Italy and Europe. The way forward, for the Democratic Party and the center-left, is the same that twenty years ago led to the change of the Law157: to support the shared commitment of environmental associations, of the most advanced part of the hunting world, starting with ArciCaccia, of agricultural associations, for a government of hunting activity that guarantees rigorous wildlife protection, avoid any hypothesis of privatization of hunting, avoid new and more serious Italians put in default by the European Union.
Source: l'Unità
signed by senators Roberto Della Seta and Francesco Ferrante