Once again large areas of our country are facing the heavy consequences of a hydrogeological instability that has brought grief and destruction.
The Italian Federation of Hunting is close to those affected by the floods, also with the concrete presence of its many committed members, like many other hunters of all associations, in the civil protection teams or who went to help personally. and help where it was most needed and to which we extend our sincere thanks.
However, the images of the devastation caused by the intense rains of these days cannot fail to induce reflections on the need for a different relationship with the territory. respectful of the environment precisely because it is lived and managed by man and not excessively exploited or, on the contrary, plastered and untouchable.
Below we publish the article by Petrini dalla Repubblica dated November 15, 2012 taken from the Slow Food website:
“It does not take a genius to understand certain causes and it would not even take a genius of politics to try and run for cover immediately. A national plan to secure the Italian territory should be the priority of any government, it should be in any electoral program, it should bring together all political forces. But no. Every autumn we must remember, in the face of these dramas, who "took water for a walk".
Speaking of agricultural civilization of the past is not disrespectful, it is not a coincidence or a hackneyed exercise by peasant maniacs. Historical studies tell us that on a geomorphologically fragile territory like ours we started a couple of centuries ago with the carpet deforestation of the hilly and mountainous areas. This greatly worsened the safety of the land and made the runoff of water more dangerous, but at least it had made room for agriculture that was forced to take care of the territory in a widespread and systematic way. All on a local basis but with a wisdom that when in exceptional cases he had to complain of damage and losses, at least he could rightly rail against bad luck, because everything possible was done to prevent.
Then, with the advent of the industrial era, the beginning of the irreparable: first the abandonment of the most difficult areas to cultivate or where the agro-industry did not adapt well, an illusory bearer of a much-needed modernity. Mountains, hills, areas considered "backward" have seen the human desert arrive, neglect, finally the very problematic attempt of Nature to take back its spaces.
I can't stop remembering what Tonino Guerra once said to me: «Italy is no longer as beautiful as it once was, it is useless for them to bother me, because once there were those who looked after it. They weren't ten people put there and paid for by the state, they were those who lived there: the peasants ». With the abandonment of these countryside, a balance has been broken that exploded downstream and in the plains with the building boom and in the industrial areas: another escalation directly proportional to that of the disasters that we now wrongly continue to call "natural".
We have witnessed a viral overbuilding which, as has been repeatedly mentioned in these pages, has never hinted at stopping, and in the last thirty years it has also worsened with 6 million hectares of fertile soil torn from our country. All this in the face of data that tell us of ten million empty, vacant or unused houses. And we don't argue about the quality of these constructions.
A bill to stop land consumption, proposed by the Minister of Agricultural and Forestry Policies Mario Catania, is ready and has been greatly improved by the State-Regions Conference also on the basis of requests from civil society: I want to hope that it will be approved quickly by this government within the deadline of the legislature, even more so after the events of the last few days.
Continuing with the story, however, the abandonment of the countryside has also continued in the plains: the peasants have become less and more alone, grappling with industrial agriculture that takes care of the territory (i.e. exploits it) only to the extent that it represents a productive factor, therefore without attention to the works that could have an interest for the community. Finally, there was also the disposal of industrial areas: I cannot help but think of those specters of territory that have become certain points of the Bormida Valley or that will soon become so, like the Taranto area.
Hardly anyone takes care of Italy anymore. Legambiente estimated in 2010 that 82% of Italian municipalities are at hydrogeological risk, in five regions we are 100%. Not even the state, which could do so much, does its part while stubbornly pursuing "great works" that now sound more and more like a mockery. It is impossible not to shout the request for a serious and modern plan to secure the national territory. Plan that acts at the local level not only with minimal and simple (but yes, large) works of care and maintenance: also through the protection of fertile soils and the re-production of compromised ones (with forms of neo-agriculture for industry, such as bioplastic crops in polluted soils).
Or through the incentives for a return to the countryside by the new generations and a reward to those who, through agricultural activity, still serve the nation with those jobs that know how to "take water for a walk". This is true modernity, this is what we really talk about when we talk about landscape, sustainable agriculture or the local economy. It is not poetry or nostalgia.
These are things that would generate more jobs and GDP than disasters do. Because it is terrible to say - and it is no coincidence that there are those who have been caught rejoicing and laughing at an earthquake - but an "unnatural" disaster makes GDP shares through reconstruction or perhaps even with forms of private insurance that now, look case, some would like to be compulsory for everyone ”.
November 20, 2012
Hunting Federation