2012-2013 Hunting Calendar: Sicily, environmentalists resort to the TAR, councilor Aiello's immediate reply on the legitimacy of the island's Hunting Calendar.
The Environmental Associations CAI, Legambiente, LIPU, MAN, Wwf filed an appeal with the TAR of Palermo against the 2012-2013 Hunting Calendar of the Sicily Region recently issued as it would contain serious violations to national and community legislation.
Among the reasons for the environmental appeal there is above all the planned opening of the Hunting Season despite the lack of the Regional Wildlife Hunting Plan; in this way, the Hunting Calendar allows hunting in Sites of Community Importance without the prior Environmental Impact Assessment required by law, all in turn without any opinion from ISPRA, Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, and the Ministry of the Environment.
The environmentalist acronyms admit that the work of the current administration does not in any way reflect that of the previous year with the councilor D'Antrassi who had applied the Regional Wildlife Hunting Plan provisionally approved by the Sicilian Regional Assembly thus respecting the procedures regulations.
Pending the assessment of the TAR on the reasons for the appeal, the environmentalists also intend to request an urgent measure that blocks the pre-opening of the hunt foreseen by the Hunting Calendar for next September 1st as well as the intervention of the Regional Councilor for the Environment, Alessandro Aricò, for the protection of Natura 2000 sites and the simultaneous submission of the Calendar to the Environmental Impact Assessment.
On the issue, environmental exponents, Mario Vaccarella for CAI, Angelo Dimarca for Legambiente, Nino Provenza for LIPU, Deborah Ricciardi for MAN and Francesco Alaimo for WWF, declared, "This is the worst hunting calendar in recent years irremediable contrast with national and community legislation on wildlife conservation and in defiance of previous rulings of the Sicily Regional Administrative Court and the Administrative Justice Council. "
The response from the regional councilor for Agricultural and Food Resources of Sicily, Francesco Aiello, was immediate to the question raised by environmentalists on the 2012-2013 Hunting Calendar, who stated, "It is necessary to clarify that the wildlife and hunting plan is not needed. other than to divide the regional territory into three parts: one destined to the Territorial Areas of Hunting, one to the Fauna-Hunting and Agrovenatory Companies, and a third declined to protect the fauna through the oases, parks and natural reserves ".
Continuing in his reply Aiello explained, “Law 157/92 provides that the Plan is revised every five years, after this period any changes can be made. This does not mean that, after five years, hunting areas, wildlife and hunting farms, and above all the protection areas, which instead remain established and functioning, decay ”.
Referring then to the question of hunting within the protected sites of the Natura 2000 network, Councilor Aiello explained, "Compared to last year, when the ban was sanctioned by the decisions of the TAR of Palermo, this year there are Management plans, prepared by the managing bodies and approved by the Department of the Territory and the Environment which provide for the possibility of hunting within the limits permitted by law ".