The behavior of LIPU and WWF
On the pages of Green&Blue of "la Repubblica", under the title "Hunting, the TAR of Lazio stops the attempt of hunting associations to reduce the limits", what would have been a great victory was emphatically celebrated by LIPU and WWF with the ruling of the Lazio TAR (Section I, 12.2.2024 n. 2723) which declared inadmissible the appeal of the hunting associations which requested verification of the non-binding nature of the national guidelines which had introduced the obligation for the Regions to subject the hunting calendars to evaluation of environmental impact (VINCA). Few times have we witnessed such an example of misinformation or, better yet, distortion of the reality of the facts, since what the LIPU and the WWF want to pass off as a great victory is in reality a resounding defeat for them.
The nature of the guidelines
This is the story in summary. Italian Hunting Federation and other Hunting Associations, having noticed the coup of the environmentalist/animal rights associations who had succeeded in having the obligation for the Regions introduced into the Guidelines - not foreseen by any legal provision and even less by the Habitats Directive – to submit the hunting calendars to VINCA, they turned to the TAR of Lazio requesting first of all the verification of the non-binding nature of the Guidelines themselves with consequent declaration of inadmissibility of the appeal due to lack of interest. It is in fact a banal rule of the administrative process - evidently ignored only by the LIPU and the WWF - that where the contested act (in this case the Guidelines) is declared by the Judges to be devoid of binding effects, i.e. devoid of harmfulness, the purpose aimed at by the appeal is evidently achieved. The declaration of ineffectiveness of the contested act has in fact the same effects as annulment.
The thesis of the hunting world
The primary aim pursued by ours and by the other hunting associations with the appeal to the TAR of Lazio was precisely to obtain, as they obtained, the verification by the Judges of the non-bindingness of the Guidelines in the part in which they had introduced the obligation for the Regions to submit the hunting calendars to VINCA. As emerges from the correct reading of the motivation of the Lazio TAR ruling - from which phrases out of context cannot be artfully extrapolated - the thesis of the hunting associations was fully accepted, contrary to what the LIPU and the WWF want us to believe: the Judges have clarified that there is no obligation for the Regions to submit hunting calendars to VINCA.
Unabashed satisfaction
It is incredible, but not surprising, that LIPU and the WWF, instead of passing over in silence a matter in which they were sensationally unsuccessful, could instead have had the audacity to express full satisfaction with this process whose outcome sweeps away yet another attempt by the associations environmentalists/animal rights activists to hinder hunting activity. Italian Hunting Federation thanks once again the lawyer Alberto Maria Bruni of Florence, who sponsored the Federation and the other AA.VV., for his commitment and high professionalism, which allowed us to report this important result ( source: Federcaccia).