It was delivered by the group of professionals in charge of the Incidence Study, first step for get the Vinca in the areas of Natura 2000 Network, Sic and ZPS. The lack of this document last year in the province of Brescia and Lecco led to the suspension of the hunting levy in the Sic and in the SPAs. In the province of Brescia, we remind you, hunting has been suspended in the Alto Garda SPA in the territory of the C8 District, in Serle in the Cariadeghe plateau and in the SPA falling within the territory of the C3 District in Vallecamonica. The suspension was decreed by the Milan TAR on 28 October last after an appeal filed by the usual animal rights acronyms.
Because in Brescia there was no Vinca e what will this assessment of the incidence of hunting in the Natura 2000 areas entail? First of all, the Vinca in Brescia was never carried out because being our Wildlife Plan, prior to 2005, it had been done in a period in which the Habitat Directive which imposes the Natura 2000 areas and the consequent Vinca by law, had not yet been adopted by the Lombardy region. Therefore, our Plan has never been renewed, as was foreseen for those after 2005. Not renewing it on the one hand put us in a state of tranquility in the face of administrative appeals and we did not suffer the problems that occurred, for example, in Bergamo, which saw the hunting suspended a couple of times and the transformation of an ATC into a District , with all the limitations of the case. If the Directors of the time had wished to proceed with an Impact Study and subsequent Evaluation, the Vinca in fact, the Plan would have lapsed and we too would have ended up in the Russian roulette of administrative appeals with well-imaginable consequences.
However, the former Minister of the Environment Costa thought about subverting the situation, through the new Guidelines for Environmental Assessments in end of 2019: in essence, now every activity in the Natura 2000 areas must necessarily be subject to Vinca, including the effects of hunting calendars. Federcaccia at the national level immediately intervened at the Lazio Regional Administrative Court and the judgment is still pending: but immediately obtained a ministerial note for clarification, for which it is not necessary to submit the hunting calendar to Vinca, if the impact of hunting has been assessed in the Vinca on the Faunal Plan. Unfortunately, the Lombardy Region does not have a Regional Wildlife Plan and therefore does not even have the Vinca on it, but in the absence of the Regional Plan, the Provincial plans and the relative Vinca can be valid for SIC and SPA.
So here is the reason for all the problems in our SPAs and in our SCIs: in Brescia there was and is no Vinca for these areas. With the work carried out by the Lombardy Region, however, we are approaching, probably by the end of July, the resolution of this problem. Certainly there will be prescriptions, restrictions on hunting in these areas, but it seems reasonable to imagine that they will be similar to those envisaged in the SPAs and SCIs of the rest of Lombardy: delay in the start of dog training and use of lead in the presence of wetlands. Now the important thing is that the Environment Department sends the Incidence Study to all the bodies managing the SIC and the SPAs for the assessments required by law and then we will carefully examine the finished work. What we feel we can say with reasonable certainty is that in the areas where hunting was suspended last year, this year we will go hunting. Hunting is not prohibited in the SPAs and in the SIC and it is important that this principle is maintained. Surely, however, the entire administrative process must be completed in time but we are confident that the councilor Fabio Rolfi keeps the schedule of his offices monitored so as not to find ourselves in the situation of last year (Source: Federcaccia Brescia).