The TAR of Sicily accepts the appeal of environmentalists against the Region, ruling that the Wildlife Hunting Plan must be subjected to an impact assessment.
Accepting the appeal of some environmentalist acronyms, including Legambiente Sicilian Regional Committee Onlus, the Sicilian Administrative Court decided with its sentence of 14 March 2012 that the Wildlife Hunting Plan must be subjected to an impact assessment in compliance with national legislation and the directive. habitat.
The environmentalists have raised the question as the 2010/2011 Hunting Calendar of Sicily and the same Wildlife Hunting Plan relating to the period 2006-2011, do not appear to have been preceded by the expected impact assessment, so much so that a temporary hunting ban has not been envisaged. in all Natura 2000 sites.
Natura 2000 is an ecological network of protected areas of Community importance considered very important for the protection of European biodiversity and established by the Habitats Directive itself. The Natura 2000 network is made up of a series of sites specifically identified for the achievement of the objectives set by the Habitats Directive as well as SPAs, Special Protection Areas identified in all Member States for the protection of birdlife.
Precisely because of their importance, these areas must be considered in the planning and territorial planning therefore foreseen by the Fauna Plans and the Hunting Calendars. The impact assessment is therefore necessary precisely to prevent territorial planning devices from being in contrast with the Community Directives.
In the case of the Hunting Calendar and the Sicilian Hunting Wildlife Plan, they are not subjected to an evaluation of incidence, lending themselves to evaluation errors such as the authorization to practice hunting in some SPAs and in the vicinity of the SCI.