THEEuropean Environment Agency (EEA) has recently produced an assessment of the condition of the environment in Europe providing basic data and indications also useful to policy makers and administrators. The five-year report SOER 2020 "State and Outlook of the Environment Report" collects sensitive environmental information from numerous countries, in addition to those of the European Union (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo).
The picture is not the best: “above all it continues to go wrong there biodiversity, better emissions, renewable sources and efficient use of resources "(http://www.snpambiente.it/2019/12/04/lambiente-in-europa-stato-e-prospettive-nel-2020). Faced with this worrying picture for biodiversity, Federcaccia intends to do its part responsibly to the end. The presentation of the new Faunistic and Agro-environmental Studies and Research Office has recently been presented, which includes, among its institutional purposes, above all the commitment to increase research activities applied to biology and sustainable management of different species of hunting interest and their habitats. A first important example of the Office's concrete commitment is the LIFE PERDIX project. An ambitious project for the recovery and reintroduction of the Gray partridge (Perdix perdix italica), subspecies of community interest, implemented largely with funds from the LIFE Program of the European Union and promoted by Federcaccia, together with ISPRA, Fédération Nationale des Chasseurs (France), Regional Park of the Po Delta Emilia-Romagna, Legambiente, Carabinieri Forestali and ENCI as co-financier.
For us hunters, the Gray Partridge is a bulwark, to be defended at any cost. And the Italian Gray Partridge involves us directly, being an exclusive endemism of our country, by virtue of which the EU assigns Italy 100% responsibility for its desired recovery. As conscientious nature-loving hunters we felt compelled to promote a serious attempt to recover and conserve as much of the genetic biodiversity of the Italian Gray Partridge as possible today. We cannot underestimate, in fact, that Italy is located at the southern edge of the range of the species in Europe (with peculiar ecological conditions) and it is possible that an adaptive capacity may also be associated with this genetic biodiversity. With the Project LIFE PERDIX we will therefore try to keep the evolutionary future of our Italian Gray Partridge open, as much as possible today, passing on its heritage of Italian biodiversity to future generations. (Valter Trocchi)