The meeting with the councilor
The Lombard hunting associations met the new Regional Councilor for Agriculture on Tuesday afternoon with responsibility for hunting Alessandro Beduschi. The president of Federcaccia Lombardia, the lawyer Lorenzo Bertacchi, was obviously present, accompanied by our provincial president Marco Bruni. In his introductory speech, the commissioner seemed to us to be a very balanced person and devoid of any ideological closure towards the hunting world. Indeed he immediately clarified that he was available to listen to our requests and receptive to any form of collaboration, underlining the importance of the hunter's role as an environmental sentinel and regulator of the many emergencies present today in Lombardy, such as wild boars, coypu and corvids. As a good man from Mantua he underlined the damage caused by coypu to the irrigation system in a period in which water is more precious than ever and as agriculture councilor he underlined the danger of ASF, African swine fever, carried by wild boar, which could bring to its knees a strategic sector of Lombard animal husbandry, that of pig farming. He then illustrated the first two topics on which the commitment of the structure is concentrated today: hunting calendar and the question of crossing points, currently being examined by the Lombardy TAR.
The calendar to be “built”
For the calendar, a calendar in line with the national law 157/92 has been prepared to be sent to ISPRA with the only limitations reserved for those species covered by the National Management Plan, i.e. lark, quail, lapwing, turtle dove and pochard. Unfortunately due to the timing due to the inauguration of the new commissioner, the draft calendar will be sent to ISPRA by the end of this week: this delay will lead to the publication of the calendar not before mid-July. This date does not help us because any appeals, let's say certain, by the usual animal rights associations can be made within sixty days of its publication, and since the month of August is excluded from this account, they can also take place close to the opening of the hunting season or even at the start of the season. This is a big problem that can only be avoided by presenting the calendars by and no later than the end of May. We are aware that this delay is not the commissioner's fault but this is a very big problem even if before we wrap our heads it will be advisable to examine the opinion expressed by Ispra on the draft calendar, an opinion which should arrive by the end of April.
A possible Plan B
The Director General Andrea Massari intervened on the other issue on the table and could only take time in the sense that until the Lombardy Regional Administrative Court has expressed its opinion on the appeal made by animal rights activists, it is useless to make statements despite the awareness that in case of a negative sentence, the problem to be faced will be enormous. In fact, from a quick reconnaissance in the territories of the passes where any form of hunting could be precluded, today there are 150 fixed stakeouts in Brescia alone. It will therefore be appropriate, this is our thought, that the representatives of the Lombardy Region elected also with the vote of the hunting world begin to prepare the so-called Plan B, for which Federcaccia Lombardia is obviously always available to draft. Councilor Beduschi seemed to us to be a willing person and without ideological constraints, and this, as we wrote above, is certainly an excellent starting point but in reality, very thorny topics await him in the coming months and we do not envy him at all. Certainly having a capable person at his side like general manager Maccari is a certainty and a guarantee but it goes without saying that they will not be able to ignore laws and sentences. We then invite the Brescian regional councilors elected to verify the rumor that a retired former official of the Lombardy Region has been enlisted within the political secretariat of the new regional councilor Gianluca Comazzi.
No alarmism
This verification is important because the Department of Territory will be delegated to express the Vinca for the calendar, that is to raise any exceptions regarding how the Department of Hunting will have decided to regulate the next hunting season. It is not our intention to be alarmist but since we have had some problems from certain managers in the past years, finding them back on track in positions that could give us unpleasant surprises is not welcome. The hope is that the rumours, at least in this case, are unfounded (FIdC BRESCIA – CACCIAPENSIERI).