The President of the I section of the TAR of Palermo, with urgent decree no. 922 of 30 September last, accepted the request for suspension on the appeals presented by the environmental and animal welfare associations Enpa, Lav, Legambiente, Man (Mediterranean Nature Association) and WwF against the decree of 31 August 2009 of the Regional Councilor for Agriculture and Forestry, Hon. Michele Cimino, who regulated hunting in the areas affected by the migratory routes of birds and in the “Special Protection Areas"Identified by the European Union in Sicily.
The decree assessorial had been issued - a few days after the opening of the hunting season e should have carried out the previous decisions of the same TAR which, with ordinances no. 730/09, 731/09, 732/09 relating to the appeals of the same environmental associations, had censored the Regional Hunting Calendar by requiring the Councilor to prohibit hunting in the "migratory routes": areas where the "passage" of migratory birds is concentrated. This would have resulted in a ban on hunting, for example, in all the Sicilian minor islands, in part of the wetlands and in the entire coastal strip of the region for at least half a kilometer from the shoreline.. On the contrary, the decree of the Councilor Cimino, instead of giving correct execution to the decision of the administrative judiciary, clearly evaded it by establishing that those migratory routes coincide with areas already forbidden to hunting (reserves, forest estates, fenced agricultural funds). In short, a decree that in fact did not change anything and indeed continued to allow shotguns to fire in areas crossed by migratory birds. So now, following a new appeal by ENPA, LAV, LEGAMBIENTE, MAN and WWF, the TAR suspended the effectiveness of the decree of the Councilor for Agriculture pending the hearing on 13 October. The direct consequences of the "stop" of the TAR are:
in application of art. 21, paragraph 2, of the state hunting law n. 157 of 1992, hunting is prohibited in the entire coastal strip of Sicily for at least half a kilometer from the shoreline;
until the Region accurately identifies the migratory routes to be protected, any form of hunting is prohibited in all 29 Sicilian SPAs (including the Pelagie Islands, the Egadi Islands, the Aeolian Islands, Ustica, Pantelleria, Piana di Gela, Saline of Syracuse, Pantani of south-eastern Sicily, etc ...). For the environmentalist and animal welfare associations, the new provision of the TAR represents a very useful intervention for the avifauna which, in recent weeks, has begun to cross Sicily and its smaller islands for the migratory journey that millions of birds undertake from Northern Europe for wintering in the Mediterranean and North Africa. Enpa, Lav, Legambiente, Man and Wwf ask the competent authorities to prepare adequate control and prevention services, so that compliance with the hunting ban along the coastal strip and in the SPA areas is guaranteed.
Source: ENPA