Between Roncoferraro, San Giorgio and Mantua, a private hunting reserve is about to be born. A wildlife-hunting company that will have an extension of about seven hundred hectares, a third of which included in the territory of the Mincio Park. The company is called “La Pellegrina” and was authorized by the Hunting and Fishing Sector of the Province with a managerial deed of last January 8th. Maximum secrecy on the property, which involved the farmers who own the fields in the project (others, according to the authorization, were subject to "forced inclusion" permitted by law). But rumors indicate among the future members several VIPs including the mayor of Verona, Flavio Tosi (heard about the Gazzetta, he preferred not to comment).
When the company opens its doors, hares and pheasants from that area will be reserved for members only. Access to those fields, as long as not by car, will remain open to all. The ok to this new company had to undergo a complex authorization process and not without controversy. One of the fundamental steps was the evaluation requested from the Mincio Park. Of the 732 hectares of extension, about 200 are in the territory of the Park, and in the immediate vicinity, immediately after the A22 route, there is the Vallazza Reserve. Last autumn, the Park said yes: «First of all, we must say - they now explain from the Porta Giulia body - that that area, even though it belongs to us, is not part of the Reserve and has no respect restrictions. These are cultivated land, in which it has always been possible to hunt ».
Now the area will be open only to private individuals, and this, they explain, from an environmentalist point of view is preferable: "The birth of a private company will help to reduce the environmental impact that the hunting activity, which is there it has always been, it has on the territory ». From about 38 hunters per hectare, the average figure for the Province, it would go to 15. "In addition, the company will carry out checks on the type of hunting activity, and on its own members".
But there is more: the positive impact assessment was given because the new property is committed to carrying out improvements to the area, for example with the creation of green areas, spontaneous vegetation and replanting. The second, more difficult step for the company was to be accepted by the Mantuan hunting world. Used to go to that territory and also to take care of it. During the authorization process, the Province had to take into consideration the negative opinion given to the company by the competent hunting area (number six).
The head of the ATC, Paolo Guarnieri, is ready to explain: “There are at least two reasons. The first is that Mantuan hunters will have less and less land for their hobby. We are now losing another seven hundred hectares on the edge of the city, in a green area that in the recent past has increasingly shrunk due to urbanization. The second is that we hunters have always taken care of that territory, taking care of a repopulation and capture area that is right next to the new company. This is why we had requested that there be at least a buffer zone between this area and the Zrc, because it does not seem right that the fauna of the free area we take care of should end up in the one in which we will be excluded from now on ".
19 January 2013
Source: Gazzetta di Mantova