Twelve months ago
It has been a year now since the first case of Wild boar plague identified in Piedmont, but the solutions are still insufficient to stop the problem and guarantee regular operations for businesses. This is what Coldiretti Piemonte affirms in commenting on the low number of wild boar slaughters that do not reach the threshold of 16, so the goal of 50 remains far away. “So many words, several meetings, regional ordinances, barriers and fences under construction, without an effective timetable in terms of completing the works and activating extraordinary and decisive interventions. The reality is disappointing and somewhat critical with incalculable economic damage to agricultural production and businesses, to the environment and road accidents which have continued to occur during this year. Suffice it to say that in the last 7 years the damage caused by wild boars has been around 17 million euros in Piedmont, according to Ispra data - note Roberto Moncalvo, President of Coldiretti Piedmont and Bruno Rivarossa, Confederal Delegate -.
Law 157 of 1992
It is clear that the institutions must find a concrete solution to move on, to create the conditions for generating the conditions that allow for a resumption of farming activity even in the most affected areas, to define a recovery perspective, to secure the our territory, citizens and businesses without wasting any more time. It is necessary to acknowledge once and for all that hunters are not supporting, especially in the areas affected by the PSA, the necessary operations and more generally the wild boar depopulation campaign: it is therefore necessary to fully implement the provisions recently introduced with the rewriting of the article 19 of Law no. 157/92 on the subject of an effective control of wildlife. This is why it is urgent to invest in increasing the personnel responsible for the felling activity and all interventions must be implemented without excuses, applying the operational guidelines, without depending on the ATC and CA which, with rare exceptions, have effectively blocked operation so far.
Greater protection for businesses
It is also necessary to allow the resumption of breeding, with clear and sustainable biosecurity criteria, both for the companies falling within the area affected by the PSA and for the many companies that breed in a semi-wild state throughout the region, which they have often had to give up this type of breeding with the risk of losing a long job of protecting historical breeds of our biodiversity. In light of the upheavals caused by the war in Ukraine, it is essential to allow our companies to be able to carry out their work, guaranteeing our country a correct level of food sovereignty. Agricultural enterprises and the population must be protected and the region secured as soon as possible. On this front, it is also necessary for politics to fully assume its responsibilities, avoiding intervening, as is happening with the first draft of the regional reorganization law, only in the context of hunting and on aspects having a connotation of an exclusively managerial character and of interest to a few: it is concretely necessary to define a strategy that allows, through immediate and extraordinary actions, to start a real process of eradication of African swine fever from our territory" (source: Coldiretti).