After the many controversies of the past few days and after the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee has expressed itself in favor of the changes to the 2011/12 Hunting Calendar, the resolution that makes the related changes is approved.
15 September 2011 - Approved by the councilor for hunting of the Abruzzo Region, Mauro Febbo, the resolution to modify the Hunting Calendar for the upcoming season thus conforming it to the current provisions on the protection of protected species.
The Regional Council, on the proposal of the councilor for hunting, Mauro Febbo, approved the resolution to modify the 2011-2012 hunting calendar to bring it into line with the indications of the Action Plan for the protection of the Marsican bear (PATOM). This resolution was preceded by the meeting of the EIA Committee of the Abruzzo Region held on 13/09 at the Parks and Environment Department which expressed a favorable opinion on the changes.
"This measure? says councilor Mauro Febbo - it was necessary because the previously approved calendar was highly limiting and did not comply with both the indications of the Marsican bear protection plan (PATOM) and the memorandum of understanding between the Province of L'Aquila and the Abruzzo National Park.
In fact - underlines the Councilor - the previous opinion, compulsorily transposed into the hunting calendar, was also discriminatory towards hunters from L'Aquila since it allowed hunting activities in the External Protection Area (ZPE) of the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park and in the PATOM Areas A, only starting from November 1st and not from September 18th, as is the case on the whole Regional territory.
The approved modification, therefore, restores uniformity of treatment between the provinces and coherence in the management of the hunting calendar. Specifically, in the ZPE and in the A zones of the PATOM, limited to wild boar, hunting is allowed from 18 September to 18 December, in the form of a stakeout with a rifle equipped with optics, and from 1 November to 18 December also in the form of the turn.
This choice was widely shared by ISPRA, which took care of the scientific supervision of the PATOM. "I also feel it is my duty to inform that my Department has launched a new participatory process that respects the needs of the parties and in which the hunting activity is based on technical-scientific criteria and in compliance with the law".
"This work - concludes the commissioner Febbo - is carried out on the one hand to protect the environment, and therefore the wildlife heritage, and on the other hand to stimulate the evolution of the figure and function of the hunter who must increasingly qualify as a manager of the environment; hunting, practiced on a rigorously technical and scientific basis, is therefore proposed as a form of environmental management, perfectly compatible with conservation issues, and today already in the being of many hunters ".
Source: Abruzzo Region