The position taken by the Minister Costa who, at a time of great emergency for the country, managed to find time to deal with lapwings and pochards, did not find us in agreement. As soon as the note was released, we went out of our way by asking the Control Room of the Recognized Hunting Associations a common position taken, but unfortunately only Enalcaccia considered it appropriate to respond favorably to our appeal. In this climate of uncertainty, our Association has strongly supported, from the Alps to Sicily, the need to approve, for this year, hunting calendars that reflect those of last season in all regions.
This is for a simple reason, to avoid appeals by animal rights associations by proposing again texts already applied last year. This is why we strongly disapprove of the attitude of the Minister, who took the trouble to write to the Regions, asking to exclude the two species from the sample, a move already attempted two years ago with the turtle dove and last year again with the pochard, fortunately with poor results. In our opinion, the Minister, rather than asking for a ban on the levy, which is also the responsibility of my colleague Bellanova, would have done better to take care of implementing the national action plans on pochards and lapwings.
In fact, if it is not true that Europe orders us to suspend the collection of the two species, on the contrary, it is very true that he has insisted on us to adopt measures to favor the increase of these species. Well, the removal of what hinders the increase of a species and the adoption of measures that favor it, the action plan, indeed, that is a competence of the Minister of the Environment on which we would like to know where we are. . On this subject, which touches all hunters, we would have liked the hunting world to make its voice heard in a unified way, which it would have given greater weight and concreteness to our requests.
For this we promptly requested the intervention of the Control Room. Unfortunately, instead of receiving responses, we had to see the position statements of individual associations come out. Initiatives that disperse our strength among a thousand streams, generally leading to nothing done. We have done the right thing, following the unitary spirit that distinguishes us. Too bad to have to note that, beyond the beautiful words, we prefer to sacrifice unity on the altar of the hope of a few more cards.